One Freakish Love
by StayBeautiful1
Summary: Ronnie is the average girl, Darren Shan WAS the average boy until he became a vampire and Ronnie was pulled into all of this chaotic mess, she's pulled between the Cique and home, and Steve Leopard shows up and comes in. This really IS complicated.
1. His Name Was Darren Shan

Monday morning, perfect. The sun was already peeking through my curtains, the heat made my forehead glisten with sweat, which I wiped off with the back of my hand. I rocked myself a couple times, making my way out of my bed. I slowly walked towards my bathroom, flipping on the light switch with my eyes still closed. I opened to see my long blonde hair pulled on top of my head, the strands that I had missed laid on my shoulders. I wiped my hands under my eyes, black makeup left over from the day before laid underneath my blue eyes. Yawning, I turned on my shower and went through my normal routine of getting ready. I walked down the stairs, putting my phone into my back pocket, I was walking through my kitchen, when I heard a familiar knock at my door.

His name was Darren Shan, he has walked me to school everyday for the past five years. I've had a elementary crush on him, ever since I kissed him in the fifth grade.

"Hey Ronnie" he smiled, his tall figure blocked me from the glare of the sun, so I could see his perfect smile. His brown hair fell down on his forehead, coming down until his eyebrows and above his deep brown eyes.

"Hi Dar," I answered still standing in the doorway.

"You ready?" He asked, flashing that familiar smile thats been close to me for years.

"Yeah, let me grab my bag, and we'll go." I said, jogging to the kitchen, grabbing my bag off of the table, and then shutting the door behind me. We walked side by side, Darren's hand in his pocket as he walked, looking down as he kicked a rock down the sidewalk.

"Do you feel like, your whole life is planned out for you?" he said randomly, I looked to the side and then back forward,

"I don't know, I never really thought about it. Is something bothering you?" I said, scrunching my eyebrows together as I asked.

"No, I'm just bored." he said stopping in front of our class.

"Are you coming?" I said, motioning towards the door.

"No, I have to go meet Steve, I'll catch up with you later Ron!" he said walking down the hall. Wow, Darren skipping class? That was weird.

His name was Steve, he was Darren's best friend, other than me. He was average sized, a little built. His silver hair was always styled up on top of his head, his grin was mischievous, he got Darren in trouble, a lot. And his family was never happy about it. I didn't have a problem with him, he interested me, and none the less, was very attractive. I sat in class, leaning my head on my hands as Ms. Phan wrote on the board. _I need to get out of here!_ I thought, the bell rang and I let out a sigh of relief, grabbing my bag and walking out of the classroom. I looked around and Darren was nowhere to be found. This never happened. Worried, I walked through the schools hall, peeking in every nook and cranny. I finally found him, sitting right next to Steve.

'What happened?' I mouthed, looking behind me to make sure no administration caught me. Darren was a mess, he was white in the face, and his eyes were blank.

'I'll tell you later,' he mouthed, looking around. I nodded and pushed my lips into a straight line,

'Sorry.' he mouthed sincerely, Steve stared at me and then waved, noticing that it was actually me, and not some girl he hasn't seen before. I walked home alone, my i-pod in my ears, opening the door as I got home. My mom was standing in the kitchen and smiled as I walked in the door, sitting down at the table.

"Hey, where's Darren?" she asked, looking around the corner, seeing if he was behind me, and just running a little behind.

"He got in trouble." I said looking at her.

"Ronnie, are we talking about the same kid here?" she said, knowing that Darren never got in trouble.

"Yeah, I know, I was pretty shocked too," I said standing up, "I'm going upstairs in my room." Walking up the stairs, my phone vibrated in my pocket, I smiled when I read it, _One Unread Message from: Darren:)_ I clicked read, laying down on my bed, '_I am grounded for two months, my parents went crazy, and now I can't hang out with Steve anymore._' he wrote. I thought for a second and then replied. '_I'm sorry Darren... I know its going to be hard not to hang out with Steve anymore...", _his reply came quickly, which usually never happened. '_No it __won't be hard, because I'm going to a freak show with him right now. I'll catch you later! :)' _he said. I sighed and exited out of the conversation.

Next thing I knew, Darren Shan was dead. It's like my heart was ripped out of my chest and buried with him. I would never see him ever again, never have his support, never be able to see him in the morning ever again. I sat on my couch, next to Steve who stopped by and sat next to me, right before I was ready to get ready for his funeral. My legs were crossed and I wiped my tears and nose with the back of my sleeve, my whole body shaking with each sob. Steve sat there, emotionless, not even taking his eyes off of his hands.

"I loved him. I really did. God, now I never get to tell him." I said pounding my hand down on my knee. Steve looked over to his side,

"He loved you too, Ronnie," he said turning to the side, and leaning towards me, and placing his hand on the back of my neck. He pressed his forehead against mine and looked deep in my eyes. I could hear in his voice that he was holding back tears, as he spoke to me,

"we can get through this together. Were the only two people here who aren't total idiots. Darren was crazy about you... but you can't get hung up on it okay?" he said strongly. Shivers ran down my spine, as I nodded and pulled away.

"Alright, lets go." I said my eyes puffy and red, I tried to force a smile, but I couldn't. I slowly walked up the stairs, as the sun was near sundown. I never know what was in store for me that night. I had no idea.

I walked through the funeral, right next to Steve, who kept his eyes on the ground the whole time. I couldn't cry anymore, thats what I thought at least. I walked up to Darren's mom and dad, giving them each a hug and then stared at Darren's coffin. Was I going to walk up to it? No. I couldn't. I didn't want to see Darren like that. I didn't want to remember him lying dead in a coffin. But I wanted to see his face, one last time. I wanted to tell him. Even though he couldn't hear me. I walked up to the coffin, I knew I was close enough and closed my eyes tightly for a second, trying to force them open, and when I did, I instantly started crying. I couldn't stop, it was like I had waterfalls for tears, which ran down my face. I placed my hand on his, trying to keep my chin from quivering.

"Bye Darren... I love you." I said turning away from the coffin and sitting on top of one of the grave stones, watching as Steve walked up. I saw his face change, it was sadness, and pain. And then it turned into anger, and rage,

"Hey Darren! Shan! Are you awake! Ass-wipe! Come on!" he said shaking Darren in his coffin. Has he gone completely insane? One of the men in the crowd pulled Steve away, I recognized him as a teacher of Steve and Darren's. I walked out after him, quickly grabbing his shoulders and turning him around,

"Have you gone completely mad!" I said yelling in a whispered tone, "What the hell has gotten into you?" I asked quickly. Steve just pushed my hand off of his shoulder and walked away,

"You wouldn't understand, you couldn't." he said. I stood there in awe. And next thing I knew, Steve was missing. I felt like the most alone person in the world. I lost everyone who was important to me, anyone who made a tiny bit of an impression on me, anyone that mattered.

"How could you leave me here alone!" I yelled in my room, slamming my door a couple of times after it had refused to shut the first times. Rage filled my body, I was heated, I felt like I could burst out of my own skin, I felt as if I could explode. All the energy stopped as I fell limp to the floor, screaming as I sobbed, my head buried in my hands. I looked at the clock, my vision blurred from the tears that were still present in my eyes. Midnight. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything. I stood up and walked to my closet, slipping on a black jacket and some jeans and walked out of my house towards the graveyard. The grass crunched underneath me, I looked behind me as I walked, making sure that no one was following me, the graveyard was creepy enough, especially when you're alone. I turned the corner and peeked at Darren's grave. My heart dropped, I quickly ran behind a tree. Someone was digging up Darren's grave. I closed my eyes tightly, my chest rose and dropped rapidly as my breath slipped in and out of my throat. I peeked around, seeing two heads pop out of the grave.

"Darren...?" I said quietly to myself, extremely confused. Next thing I knew, I was pressed against the tree by a set of hands,

"Hello Precious" the man said, looking me in the eyes,

"You look delicious." he said, I tried to scream, but it was muffled by the man's hand. He was suddenly thrown back, by another man, they fought for a good minute, I stood there in shock. I wanted to run, I wanted to get out of there but my legs just wouldn't let me go, they wouldn't let me run. Darren came up behind me, and grabbed my hand,

"Come here." he whispered pulling me into the grave. I looked at him, my mouth wide open, "You... you're alive you can't be this can't be true." I said tears starting to well up in my eyes.

"Its, complicated." he said, looking down.

"RUN!" the other unknown figure yelled as the other man tackled him into the grave. Darren pulled my behind him, running quickly. I was picked up by the man, and quickly moved to another area, my breath was pulled out of my body, I couldn't even catch my breath. The other man was hit by a car and sent flying.

"Who... who are you?" I said looking at the man, who was standing in the middle of the field we were standing in.

"Crepsley, nice to meet you, and thank you for making everything so much more complicated." he said, I looked at him,

"What do you mean more complicated?" I asked looking at Darren,

"Were vampires. And now, that vampire will tell you about Mr. Tiny and- well I'll explain later. But now I have to get Darren out of here, and get you home." he said.

"Wait! Just let me talk to Darren..." I said looking at him. My tears were making it so hard to see him,

"You're a vampire?" I asked, he looked at me and nodded his head.

"I thought that when I died I would never be able to ask you this..." he said. I stepped closer to him, looking down and then right into his usually familiar eyes, which were now tinted with a light color.

"Can I kiss you?" he whispered, I started to cry and nodded my head,

"Yeah, you can kiss me." I said leaning into him, I closed my eyes as our lips met, his hands rested on the small of my back as his kissed me. He was cold and he tasted sweet. I never wanted to leave here, I never wanted to leave him. I don't care if he's the undead, I don't care about anything.

"Ahem, we need to go now." Crepsley said, as Darren and I pulled apart. I placed my head on his shoulder, and he grabbed my chin in his hand and looked me in the eyes, "You'll see me soon, I promise."

Wow, this IS complicated.


	2. Leopard

I stirred in my bed, I didn't know if what happened was real or not. If it was the grief messing with my mind, or the fact that I missed Darren. I had no clue what it was. I sat up in my bed, and laid my head in my hands and laced my fingers through my hair, letting out a long sigh.

"It was my choice." I heard from the corner of my room. I saw Darren looking out my window, new muscles emerged around his arms, even his neck seemed changed. I was shocked, I had to admit, but I knew that what I saw was real and not my mind tricking me. I couldn't say anything though, so Darren continued,

"There was this spider there... you know how much I love them. I stole Mr. Crepsley's spider, and it bit Steve, and I had to become one of these... freaks to save him." he said, next thing I knew he was leaning over of me in my bed. I closed my eyes slowly, and leaned against my pillow, I felt his breath on my neck, his lips ran down my jawline, and then down my collar bone. I closed my eyes even tighter. Why was I afraid? I quickly grabbed his face and pulled him into a hard, deep, heavy kiss. He pulled back quickly breathing heavily. I could see the surprise in his eyes, Darren never was really ever _involved_ with any girls. He was very shy, and a little timid, so I must have taken him off guard.

"This isn't going to be good." he said,

"Why?" I asked, afraid of his answer.

"Because I can't stay away from you. The vampaneze are going to be after you, along with Mr. Tiny." he growled, his voice was low.

"The vampaneze? Mr. Tiny?" I asked, questions whizzed through my head like crazy.

"I'm a half-vampire, we don't kill the people we feed on. The vampaneze are brutal, they tear their victims apart. And Mr. Tiny is just... apart of it all." he said, frustrated. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I placed my hands on my face again.

"What's wrong?" he said, quickly coming close to me in my bed, pulling me close to his body.

"I'm freaked out. The boy I love is a vampire and now I have these blood thirsty vampaneers after me-". I heard Darren chuckle behind me, "What?" I snapped through my sobs, "it's vampaneze." he said.

I smiled through my tears, "bottom line is, I can't leave you either. So I'm going to have to deal with it." "Darren." I heard Crepsley say from the side of my room.

"We need to go, the sun will be up soon, so she will be safe for the time being." he said. I could feel Crepsley's eyes on us, singeing through my skull.

"Just wait, until she falls asleep..." Darren breathed as I turned to the side, grabbing Darren's shirt, pulling myself into him and placing my head under his, and buried my face deep in his neck. I felt him tense up and then ease his body into mine.

"Just until I'm asleep..." I whispered. I was awakened by my mom sitting on the side of my bed. Without opening my eyes, I felt for Darren, who was gone. I smirked, of course he wouldn't still be there, don't be stupid. His familiar scent still lingered in my sheets. My mom ran her fingers through my hair, which made me open my eyes.

"Hi sweetheart." she said, and then she did something I didn't expect and started to cry.

"What's wrong?" I said, sitting up and looking her in the eyes. The only times she ever cried was either when I did something wrong, which I was pretty sure I didn't I was in my bed this whole time... for all she knew. Or if something was wrong, not even if something wrong happened, even if she felt like something was going to go wrong.

"I don't know what I would do without you." she said.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere." I lied. I got out of bed and made my way onto the couch, where I stayed for the day. I couldn't make it to school, even though Darren was alive I couldn't deal with those kids, they pissed me off and plain annoyed me.

"Alright Ron, I'll be back!" my mom said getting her car keys off the table, I heard the front door click shut and then open again.

"Forget something?" I asked, next thing I knew I was face to face with Steve, stunned, unable to move.

"Ste-" I tried to choke out. I was pushed against the living room wall, I winced at the pain of the impact of the wall, my arms flailing, trying to get the knife out of Steve's hands,

"I can't believe you're a vampire too!" he grunted as I kicked him in the stomach.

"What the hell? Steve, I am not a vampire!" I said, patting myself off and picking the knife up from his hands.

"And you're a missing person, I thought you died?" I said, blinking my eyes.

"No. Now I know this is all going to sound strange, but vampires are real!" he said, I arched my eyebrows, pretending to be surprised, even though I knew probably more than he did.

"I'm going to be a vampire hunter, until someone can get me to be their assistant. Darren, that traitor took my place, and I'm going to kill him, AND Vur Horston." he said, filled with rage. I walked over and picked him up, looking him in the eyes and then slapping him across the face, his head turned and he swiveled it back around and looked back at me, his eyes heated.

"Why would you want to be a vampire, and basically fake your death! Are you insane!" I said, taking a couple of steps back.

"Like my mom would care anyways. I'd rather die than live there! This is my destiny!" he yelled. I sighed and shook my head, how the hell did I get in a situation like this. I've read books and seen movies and thought and wondered how those people got in these situations and now I'm smack right in the middle of one. Vampires. Go Figure. Steve looked up at me,

"Sorry I tried to kill you." he grumbled, not making eye contact with me. I sat down on my couch. I thought quickly. I had to make sure that it seemed like I had nothing to do with Darren right now. It could be dangerous with Steve knowing that I knew about him, so I decided to act stupid, something I was way too good at.

"Darren's a... vampire?" I asked. Steve sat on the couch next to me,

"Yes. I'm sorry. I know this will hurt you..." he said, placing his hand on my knee. He looked at me, expecting me to burst out and cry, like I normally would do. But I wasn't an actress, even though I could fake being mad, and hold a grudge forever, I wasn't THAT good. I shook my head,

"I'm all cried out, I seriously can't believe this." I said, running my hands through my hair like I would normally do. He leaned forward, getting his face close to mine. Oh no. He placed his hand on the small of my back,

"I would never do ANYTHING to hurt you. The way Darren did. I'm going to get him... and I'm going to become one of the most powerful vampires in the world." he hushed and then kissed me. I tried to pull back, but all my warning signs went out of my head, I finally let my eyes close. I broke the kiss and closed my eyes,

"You should leave." I said. Steve stood up and nodded his head, without saying anything else.

I didn't think it could get anymore complicated and now it did. I loved Darren, unconditionally, first over anyone, ever since the fifth grade, and yes, I would have to tell him what just happened. Even the kiss, even though I thought about keeping that part out. But I knew it would just eventually come back and bite me in the ass if I didn't tell him. The sun was starting to go down, which meant Darren would be coming by soon. Well I hoped. I needed to know who Mr. Tiny was, and what I had to do to be safe from him. Even if it meant becoming a vampire myself. I was open to that option, I would miss my mom, yes. But I wouldn't want to put her in danger herself. And I wanted to be with Darren, I knew that for a fact. My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of footsteps upstairs. It was probably Darren and Mr. Crepsley, but I had to make sure. I crept up the stairs making sure to keep my walking quiet. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Darren. He didn't look as strong as he did before. He was very pale and he had dark circles under his eyes.

"You look... terrible." I said, running the back of my hand down his face. Cold.

"What are you doing to him?" I snapped at Crepsley, shooting him a glare, I've always been protective of Darren.

"Nothing! He refuses to drink human blood. He has been feeding off of animals and that will only keep you alive for so long, he needs to drink it or he will eventually die." Crepsley snapped, staring at Darren. I looked up at him,

"Is that true?" I whispered. Darren nodded his head,

"I refuse. I'd rather die." he spat, disgusted.

"Why not! If its going to kill you if you don't, you need to do it!" I argued. He looked down at the floor,

"I'm not getting rid of the only thing thats keeping me still human." he whispered. Crepsley looked at me,

"That is not the only problem right now, Darren's stupid excuse of not drinking blood can be figured out later. Mr. Tall has seen into the future, and you are playing an important part in it Ronnie."


	3. The First Drink

I looked at Crepsley for a long time, waiting for him to tell me what part I played in this, what any of this had to do with me. But since me staring at him for a while didn't get him to say anything I guess I had to speak.

"Well... why me?" I said looking over at the vampire who was stroking his scar on the side of his cheek.

"Well, I cannot tell you this, because I was sworn not to. It would be in your best interest for you not to know." he said, I pouted and then sat on the edge of my bed, if he couldn't tell me, then why in the hell did he even bring it up?

"What am I supposed to do now?" I said, looking over at Darren who appeared to be getting weaker and weaker by the second, and then back at the crimson vampire.

"We're going to have to take you to the Cirque for a while." he said, I thought for a moment and then realized that I had a MOM.

"I can't just leave, and then not come back, what do I tell my mom?" I asked.

"You can say you're going out of town for a couple of days. Your mother will be safe here for the time being." he responded cooly. He stared at me for a good minute or two,

"Well, get packing?" he said, making a moving motion with his hand. I didn't have time to argue or ask questions, I checked the clock on my phone, it read 4:00 across the digital numbers on the screen, almost sunrise. I pulled a black duffle bag out from my closet, throwing it on my bed and shoveling in clothes I would be needing, and all the other necessities that a girl needed to go to a circus. I didn't know exactly what the Cirque was, or what would be awaiting me when I got there, but I knew what I needed to take. After a dozen or so minutes of packing, I held my bag out. Crepsley looked at me for a second as I swung the bag around the couple times, he finally got the point, taking it with a grunt. I walked over to Darren who was leaning against the wall.

I leaned close, pressing my hips against him. Darren wasn't very experienced with girls, but I _knew_ boys and how to work them.

"Are you okay?" I asked, making sure to look in his eyes. I could always tell when Darren was lying to me, it wasn't something that was hard to see, Darren was a horrible liar.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." he said giving me a sheepish grin. I shook my head,

"You're not. I can tell. Darren, you can drink my blood if you want to." he looked up at me quickly, and then shook his head,

"No I can't. I wont. I refuse." he said in short breaths. I lifted off my sweatshirt, which I had a tank top underneath, exposing my bare shoulders. Darren's eyes looked around my body and then back at me.

"Are you sure?" he asked, warming up to the idea of drinking from me. I forced a grin,

"I have no problem with it at all." I lied. Darren ran his hand up my arm, giving me goosebumps before making a sharp incision in my shoulder. I gasped at the pain, but it was quickly replaced by the feeling of Darren's hot breath on my shoulder. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears, I started to get lightheaded and closed my eyes, hoping that it would make me be a little more steady on my feet, but it just made it worse, so I forced them open again. Darren pulled himself away, breathing heavily as if he had won a marathon and pulled me close to him,

"Are you alright?" he asked still breathless. I nodded, shivering a bit from the amount of blood he had taken from me, I had just given him apart of me, my blood was surging through his body, we were connected.

"Yeah, Im okay." I said forcing another grin before shakily putting my sweatshirt back on. He already looked better, the bags under his eyes started to decrease and the barely visible color started to come back to his face. I walked downstairs, with Darren not too far behind and went outside of the house.

"Alright, lets go." Darren said walking over to Crepsley who had my bag hung over his right shoulder.

Crepsley sniffed the air, "Darren... did you drink?" he asked looking over at me who gave him a nod, and I saw a small smirk go over Crepsley's face, not anything I've seen before.

"Yes, lets just get back to the Cirque the sun is coming up and you cannot last that long in it. Rather the less flit in it." Darren said, trying to change the subject from me drinking his blood. "Wait... what's flit?" I asked, Darren turned around, just ignoring my question. He must have known that Crepsley would answer in his place.

"Flitting is a high-speed movement that Vampires can do. Darren is only a half vampire, so he is unable to flit. So therefore I must make two trips, and we are wasting time talking about this." he said, throwing me over his shoulders. The wind was taken out of me as the earth blurred around me, I was laid on the floor, as I tried to catch my breath.

"Sorry. I always forget to tell you to hold your breath." Mr. Crepsley said, I struggled to catch my breath as Darren came up and lifted me by my hands.

"Now, we're off to the Cirque!" Mr. Crepsley said walking through the fairgrounds and to a selection of tents.


	4. Twisted Fate

Disclaimer: I am not Darren Shan, so I only own whats going on in my little mind.

I picked up my bag and threw it over my shoulder as I followed Crepsley and Darren over to a bunch of tents. I tried not to stare as I went through all the twist and turns of the Cirque. We walked into a tent where there was a large man sitting.

"Hibernus," Mr. Crepsley began, but the man turned his attention to me.

"Ronnie, welcome to the Cirque." he said extending a long, rather bony hand to me. His hand took a hold of mine and I shook, keeping a grin on my face, trying hard to make a first impression.

"You'll be staying with Gertha Teeth. Darren, if you could show Ronnie to her tent, that would be great. Me and Larten have some things to discuss." he said with a wave of his long arms. I looked over at Darren, who just nodded and smiled sweetly as he took my hand and led me out of the tent. We walked for a while, when I saw a small person walking down a path.

"What... is that?" I said walking over, and crouching down to look the little creature in the face. The stitching made it look hideous, and he had a mask over it's mouth.

"Those are the Little People. they help out around the Cirque. But they don't talk at all." Darren answered for me, smirking as I took a notice of the Little People, which I would be feeding because I had to take an amount of chores for as long as I was with the Cirque. I stretched up and nodded, which signaled Darren to go to my tent. We stopped,

"I'll show you my tent first, so you can meet Evra." Darren said with a childish grin. I entered the tent and saw two hammocks, one which was occupied by a green scaly boy who wasn't wearing a shirt and only a pair of black shorts. Taking notice of us being there, he stood up and walked over to us.

"Hello, I'm Evra Von." he said with a sheepish grin, I took it that this was Darren's room mate.

"Just Von?" I asked, before introducing myself. The snake- boy grinned and then answered,

"Yeah, just plain Von."

"Well, I'm Ronnie." I said returning his hand shake.

"Oh, you're the Ronnie that Darren's been going gaga over?" he said, giving Darren a playful nudge, he was stiff.

"HAHAHA." Darren said, letting out a sarcastic laugh, "Let me show you your tent now, Ronnie." he said, I waved goodbye to Evra and exited the tent. I saw Darren give him a glare over his shoulder but I just ignored it as I entered my tent. There was no sign of Gertha Teeth, my roomate, but I figured I would be meeting her later. I set my bag down by the hammock that would be mine.

"The Cirque seems... fun." I said, walking over to Darren and interlacing my arms around his lean waist and grinning.

"Well no matter how fun it is, I'd rather be home." He grunted.

I sighed and leaned up to kiss him, my lips pressed against his once, twice, he still tasted cold and sweet, just like home. But this time, I could feel the passion pour out of him, he pulled me closer to his body, I could feel his chest under his t-shirt, my tongue flicked at the opening of his lips, they parted and let my tongue in to explore the hollows of his mouth, he moaned a little in approval which made me grin a little, self esteem points right there! I moved my hand from his shoulders to the back of his neck where I played with his hair, I felt him shiver.

"Hey, guys-" sounded like Evra Von.

"Oh nice! Get it Darren!" Yup it was Evra Von.

Darren broke away from me quickly.

I laughed uneasily, and looked over at Evra,

"Oh this is kind of awkward." I said looking over at Darren, whose face turned into a dark crimson color. He snapped out of his embarrassment quickly, and started to carry on as if Evra didn't see anything,

"Is there a reason why you came here, Evra" he asked, annoyance was in his voice, but his sweet tone over-powered it, so Evra didn't take any notice.

"Mr. Crepsley told me to get you and Ronnie, and to have you guys go over to Mr. Tall's tent asap. _Mr. Tiny_ is there." he said, shivering after he finished his sentence.

"Whose Mr. Tiny?" I asked, seeing the tone of the room change as soon as Evra mentioned the name.

"He's a guy who comes to the Cirque every once and a while, everyone gets really uneasy when he's here. He just makes everyone feel uncomfortable." Evra answered, looking down at his shoes.

"Well, great." Darren said under his breath as his brown eyes looked at me innocently, asking me if I was ready to leave. I gave him an assuring nod and started walking towards Mr. Tall's tent, side by side. I locked eyes with Darren, and sucked in a quick gasp of air before letting it out slowly and nodding my head and following Darren into the tent.

"Well, hello!" A voice boomed, I looked over to see a plump man with yellow rain boots, and a very strange suit. This guy really needed some help to get himself dressed in the morning.

"You do not know who I am, but I sure know who you are, Ronnie!" he said, grabbing my hand and shaking it vigorously. I knew the expression on my face must have been very confused, and well bitchy. So I let out an uneasy laugh and plastered a fake smile on my face.

"I am Desmond Tiny, but you may call me Des, or just Mr. Tiny." he grinned.

_Des... Tiny... Dest iny? … Destiny! _I finally put it together and tried not to show the shock in my eyes, it could be just a coincidence, but with all thats been going on, I highly doubted that it was. I looked over at Mr. Crepsley, the red-headed vampire was standing over towards the corner of the tent, the long scar visible on his cheek, even in the dimly lit tent.

"Excuse me for asking..." I started, not wanting to give the man a bad impression, but he didn't seem like SUCH a big deal to me, so I wasn't hesitating to ask him what I needed to know. "But what do you want with me?" I asked, Mr. Tiny was set back a little, but a unpleasant smirk appeared on his lips, streching from corner to corner.

"Ronnie, my dear. You play such a large role in this, little... game, as I would like to call it." he chuckled. That sent shivers right down my spine. I could see why everyone was so freaked out when he came to the Cirque. Something about him just wasn't right.

"But why me?" I asked, looking over at Darren who was too caught up in thought to even speak. "I'm not a vampire, or a vampaneze. So I don't understand why I'm involved." I said, keeping my tone steady. Mr. Tiny only sighed happily to himself,

"Well, not yet my dear. You are not a vampire, nor a vampanese. But you will be. It will just take time, and based on you decisions and how this all unfolds, we'll know which one you will be. But my dear, whatever you _do become_, you will be just spectacular!" he said clapping his hands, like this was some kind of cruel, sick joke. He looked over to Darren,

"Oh, and don't worry young Master Shan, you play a great part in this too, I just cannot wait to see your true character... unfold." he said raising his brows. I looked over at Mr. Tall, my eyes darted across the room, I had no idea what to say. I was going to become a vampire... or a vampanese! Never. I loved Darren, and I would never become the enemy, or do anything that would hurt him, so Mr. Tiny had to be wrong.

"That is all, children. I'll be in touch." My. Tiny concluded, giving his hand a simple wave. I whipped my head to look over at Mr. Tall, who just nodded signaling us to leave the tent. Me and Darren walked out in silence,

"You cant become a vampire, or a vampanese!" he said angrily, I had never seen Darren like this, he was full of rage and anger.

"Now Darren, Mr. Tiny is never wrong, but we are going to have to send Ronnie home eventually, and that way it will give us some time to figure out what we should do. Last thing we want is for her to become one of those, dirty killing machines like the vampaneze." Mr. Crepsley said, leaning into the tent. I sat down on my hammock and ran my hand through my blonde bangs, adjusting them out of my eyes.

"But, Mr. Crepsley, I don't see what the problem is, I'm not evil and I wouldn't become one of those... vampaneze." I said, just terrified at the thought of becoming one of them. I had never witnessed them in person, except for the purple skinned monster in the graveyard. He was hideous, and I could never see myself living among them.

"But people change, more factors and people come into the picture. So to be safe, we send you home tomorrow until we decide on our final plan of action and what is best. But you need to tell us everything that goes on." Mr. Crepsley stated. And then I remembered. _Steve Leopard._ He came into my home, and kissed me! If I came home, he was sure to be back, and something wasn't right about him when he came, when I looked into his eyes... they weren't the same, I though it was the lighting but then it all hit me quickly, it wasn't just the dark room that made his eyes and skin look different!

It was that he was turning a pale violet color... he was a vampaneze!

****I am right now in the editing process, fixing things like spelling error's and Larten's contractions. This is where I have ended and will pick up off here 10/22**


	5. Home

_I added the part of the last chapter that was missing, I'm sorry for all the confusion! It wont happen again!_

**I am not Darren Shan, and do not own anything other than Ronnie and my ideas.**

**Make sure to rate, the more you rate the faster the updates come! **

I walked back to my tent in silence, Darren offered to walk me back, but I knew he had to do things for Crepsley so I decided to go on my own. I was going to tell Darren about what happened with Steve at my house, but now I couldn't! How was I going to tell him that I kissed a vampanese without him telling Mr. Crepsley and then god knows what they would do to me! What if they killed me! I knew my imagination was getting the best of me, but I still decided to keep it to myself. What's the worst thing that could happen? I entered my tent and saw a small sized woman sitting in a hammock, she walked up and gave me a HUGE teethy grin,

"Hello, I'm Gertha Teeth!" she smiled, I chuckled to myself and held out my hand.

"I'm Ronnie." I replied, she shook my hand and looked me up and down, I took no notice of it, she seemed nice but I didn't worry about making friends right now, if I was just leaving the Cirque tomorrow. I walked over to my hammock and laid down, looking at the top of the tent as I saw silhouettes pass by every once and a while. I must have drifted off mid thought because the next time I opened my eyes, the setting sun shown through and Gertha was gone once again. I must have been so exhausted that I slept through the night, and the whole next day! I sighed and rolled out of the hammock, forgetting that I wasn't in my bed and smacking on the floor. I groaned and closed my eyes tightly as I pushed myself back up. I peeked out of my tent and my heart did jumping jacks as I saw Darren was standing there, apparently waiting for me to wake up.

"Hello." I breathed, with a sheepish smile.

"Morning, lets eat before we take you home?" he asked taking my hand before I could answer, we walked up to a bunch of the people that I had met before, Cormac Limbs, Gertha, Evra and the rest of the whole gang.

"Would you like some food?" Gertha said handing me a plate, I nodded, I forgot about how hungry I was in the midst of this whole situation. I wolfed down the sausages, as Darren watched, chuckling to himself as I ate.

"What?" I said, my mouth half full of sausage.

"Nothing, you just make me laugh." he said sincerely. I gave him a grin and then stood up.

"Alright, I'm ready!" I said jumping to his side, I said my goodbyes and walked to the outskirts of the Cirque where Mr. Crepsley was waiting for us.

"Are you going to come?" I said, looking at Darren who had his hands in his pockets, and a distant look in his eyes.

"Darren cannot flit, and it would be a lot faster if I just dropped you off, per say." Crepsley answered. I frowned, and so did Darren.

"Say your goodbyes." Crepsley ordered as I walked over to Darren who pulled me into his arms without a word. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, it felt as though I was never going to see him again, and just incase I buried my head into his chest, taking in his smell. I looked up and he frowned, wiping my tears with his thumbs.

"Don't cry Ronnie, please. I'll see you soon!" he said forcing a smile. I knew that he wasn't sure if he would see me again. What if Mr. Crepsley decided it would be better if they just left me and tried to change Tiny's plan by removing me from the equation?

He gave me a simple kiss on my cheek and then stared at my lips before lightly kissing them. I pushed against him and kissed harder, feeling my legs shake as he held me, his hands resting where they always did on the small of my back. He finally pulled away, giving me one last kiss to end. I nodded and turned around, taking one last look at Darren Shan, before getting on the back of the orange vampire. I saw the world rush around me, we stopped and Mr. Crepsley set me down and saluted,

"See you soon, Ronnie." he said before flitting away. I sat down on the front steps on my house, getting myself together before shaking the lock on my door. My mom wasn't home, thank god. I didn't want to deal with her wrath right now, I'd rather just go in my room, and think. I walked up stairs and sighed as I laid back on my bed. I was hoping that I could just fall asleep, but I couldn't. I went over to my closet and pulled out a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoodie. I knew that I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else unless I went out for some fresh air.

I walked along the silent streets, it probably wasn't the smartest thing to be a little blonde girl walking around in a dark city. But I never had any problems before, so I ignored my conscience, and took a seat on one of the memorial benches in the park.

"You, know everything don't you?" I heard from behind me, I didn't have to turn around to know it was Steve. I could feel his eyes on my back, and shivered at the harsh tone in his voice.

"Yeah, I do." I answered, finally conjuring the strength to turn around and look him in the eyes.

"You went to the Cirque." he said, I stood up, deciding to be eye level with him. I knew that the vampanese were bad and I didn't want to be as vulnerable as I was.

"Yeah, I did." I answered again, making no change of tone in my voice.

"And now you must be afraid of me?" he spat, grabbing me by my arms.

"No, I'm not." I answered, I looked in his eyes, even though now he was tinted a light violet and seemed larger and more built than before I had no fear of Steve. I didn't know how smart it was for me to say that to him, but I didn't want the fact that I actually WAS afraid of him to anger him more.

"Come with me." he said, his words were simple, yet took me by total surprise.

"What? I can't come with you, Steve. You're... you're..."

"A MONSTER!" He roared. I flinched away from him and ripped myself from his arms.

"I know what you are, and what your kind does!" I yelled back, I could see that this wasn't going to end well. I would NEVER go with him, I couldn't I could never kill anyone. No matter what happened to me, no matter how much rage I ever had.

"Thats what you heard from those vampires! I want you Ronnie! I always wanted you." he said, I looked up into his eyes, they were filled with pure honesty. I was even more surprised when I felt a feeling deep in my gut. Was it... sympathy? No, it was love. Shit.

He grinned and pulled me close to him, and whispered in my ear,

"You can come with me, we can be powerful. We can be everything that you've ever wanted. I wont lie to you, I will never hurt you." he whispered.


	6. Run

**A/N: So this is going to be the last chapter for a week or so, because I will be out of town for a week and have no time to write! I apologize for this short chapter, I'm kind of having a writers block, so hopefully this vacation will give me some ideas! Remember, the more reviews, the quicker the chapters will come. Oh the love triangle begins, Darren or Steve?**

**You wouldn't believe me even if I told you I owned the Darren Shan Saga, and coincidentally, I do not!**

**R&R **

His voice struck a chord deep within my soul. I kept my eyes aimed at the floor, I knew that there was something wrong about him. He smiled cynically, he had the effect on you that would make you forget what was so off about him and forget why you were angry at him.

"I... I don't know." I choked out, Darren was in the back of my mind screaming and pleading for me to get out of there. Darren was perfect, he was beautiful and was so familiar and was just like a home away from home. I knew Steve just as long as I knew Darren, but Steve was like a walk on the wild side, he was untamed and _dangerous. _I stood where I was, and I felt Steve's warm breath on my neck, he placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me so I faced him. The corner of his lips were curled up into a grin. I opened my mouth to speak again, and tell him that I was leaving but I was silenced by his lips being forced against mine. My eyes widened and I struggled for a bit, but then my body went to ease. Steve was hot and passionate and pulled my body close to his, I had no control, my hands went up around his neck and my fingers went through his thick hair. I pulled away breathing heavily. I turned and walked away.

"I'll be in touch." He winked, and ran his fingers through my hair. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I shivered he laughed knowing the effect that he had on me.

"I'm not a bad guy, Ronnie. You know that." he said his eyes lowering on me.

"I know... I'm just not sure Steve." I said crossing my arms. "I just need to think about all of this, ok?" I said, he nodded his head and then was gone in a second and flitted away. I fell to the floor and pulled my knees into my chest, starting to sob. Why was this happening to me? I knew I loved Darren and he was a vampire and he seemed to be on the good side. But I had just kissed a Vampaneze, the enemy and the guilt pounded in my head, there was no way I could turn back now. I knew that the vampenze were bad from what I heard from Crepsley and Darren but what if they were about something else? I could learn from Steve, and his passion really surprised me. I was stuck in one of the deadliest love triangles there was, and in the end I would either become a vampire or a vampanese. I wouldn't become a vampanese, they were killers. No matter what I felt for Steve I could never be a killer. I loved Darren unconditionally, probably more than what I felt for Steve, so I decided the next time he presented for himself I would do the smart thing. Run. But my heart knew that would be easier said than done.I composed myself and wiped my nose and under my eyes with the back of my sleeve, let out a long sigh and started walking back to my house.

I looked to my side and saw a tall orange-haired vampire walking next to me. I jumped and squealed a little, which I quickly covered with embarrassment.

"Hello Ronnie." he said with a bow of his head.

"Mr. C" I said, giving the vampire a new nickname, I could see the annoyance in his eyes with me. "What ave you decided?" I asked, nervous of what he was going to say.

"I evaluated your future, and took a long time to think about what to do with you. Against Darren's wishes I decided it would be better if we took you from your home and took you with us. It would be safer, after the information Mr. Tiny provided us with last night." he said, there was a grim look in his eyes.

"For how long?" I asked, terrified of his answer.

"Forever. you're going to have to die." he answered.


	7. Goodbyes

**I know I said yesterday that the chapter I wrote yesterday would be the last one until I get back from vacation, but guess what I'm sitting here and I have some time and I got some reviews, so I decided to squeeze in this chapter before I left! Like I said, more reviews, more chapters quicker!**

**It's sad, but it had to be done. Make sure to R&R, I'll see you all when I get back from vacation and the second I get back I'll write the next chapter! **

**Disclaimer: I'd be pretty offended if you said I looked like Darren Shan. I only own Ronnie.**

I could hear my heart beating in my ears. The whole world felt like it was spinning around me. Within seconds the vampire turned my whole world upside down. In moments I had lost everything, my mom, my house, my childhood, everything. I knew it would be a waste of time for me to argue, I know Darren and Mr. Crepsley really thought this out, and I trusted Darren so this would be for the best. And Mr. Tiny must have told them something highly disturbing that they would want to take me from my home. I hoped that it wasn't about Steve. The rebel, he stayed in my mind, his words and somewhat honestly made me feel for him. But I decided against that, for now. But when he showed up again, IF he showed up again, I don't know how easy it would be for me to walk away. I just decided to stick by Darren's side and pretend that Steve Leopard did not even exist.

"Ok," I wheezed, not being able to say a lot. "When?"

"Tonight." Mr. Crepsley said, still walking beside me to my house, "You will have time to say goodbye to your mother. Remember this is for her own safety. After the funeral we're returning to the Cirque and then we must go to Vampire Mountain, which comes with so much more... changing for you. But we are going to deal with one epidemic at a time." I nodded and turned around, the vampire was gone.

I sighed and forced my key into the lock of my house, struggling to get it open as I did for 16 years before, every day. And then realized this was the last time, the tears started to pool up in my eyes and blur my vision. I lifted my head and looked at the sky, trying to keep them from falling out of my eyes. Thankfully it worked and with a sigh I opened the door. My mom was sitting on the couch, she turned around when I walked in, taking off her glasses that she needed to read her magazine and smiled.

"Hi Ronnie Bell" she greeted me, using the name that she called me ever since I was little. My heart dropped.

"Hi Mommy." I said, deciding to return the childhood nickname. I walked over and sat on the couch next to her, draping my legs over her knees like I always did. She placed her hand on my knees,

"Whats wrong sweetheart?" She said, noticing the anxiety in my voice. I guess she knew me so well she could tell that something was wrong within seconds.

"I just wanted to say that I love you no matter what. And I know I wasn't the easiest or best kid that you could have, always getting in trouble at school and having a bad temper and yelling at you and not doing what you asked me the first time. But you're the best mom I could ever ask for, and I love you and thank you for everything you've done for me." I said, at the end I started to cry and my mom pulled my head into her chest, gripping me tightly as I sobbed.

"I love you too Ronnie, but what has gotten into you?" She said, lifting my head up and looking into my eyes.

"I just had a really scary dream last night, and thought I lost you, so I decided to tell you all that just incase I never got the chance to." I lied.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere." _You're not. But I am._ "Just go upstairs and get some sleep ok?" she said. I nodded my head and gave her a kiss. I started walking up the stairs, savoring every step as I walked up them, I turned around and took my last look at my mom. _I love you, I'll watch over you._ I promised in my head. I laid in my bed as I got in my room, pulling the comforter into my chest.

"Just close your eyes, and I'll take care of the rest." I heard Mr. Crepsley coo. I closed my eyes tightly and then darkness.

I awoke to darkness, the same way that I left. I shuffled around and found that I was bound in by a box, _a coffin._ I breathed in a long deep breath, I knew if I tried to struggle, it would only freak me out. Thankfully, I heard shuffling above me, the soil being removed, scoop by scoop. The cover was opened, and the orange haired vampire peeked in.

"Hello." Mr Crepsley grinned, helping me out of the coffin. I looked up and saw Darren, grinning and I instantly became a mess again. I pulled myself into his chest, grabbing onto his t-shirt and crying into his neck. I breathed heavily as I sobbed. Darren wrapped his arms around me, and held me tight, which only made me cry harder.

"Shhh, Ronnie. Its going to be okay, I promise." he said, his voice was like a melody to his ears. He was the last piece of home that I had and I was never going to let him go. He held onto me as if he were to let go, that I would drift away. My tears started to calm down, I wiped them away with the back of my hand, like I always do. I looked at Darren, who was still holding me close. I could see the pain in his eyes, the pain that he had for _me._

"I'm sorry Ronnie, but there was no other way." he apologized. I looked at his shirt, and saw I left a big wet spot of tears.

"I'm sorry for soaking your shirt." I said, I forced a smile through my tears, he smiled and laughed a little which made my spirits raise a little.

"Its ok," He said, wiping the tears that I missed from under my eyes. "You're even beautiful when you're an emotional mess." he joked.

"You're all I have now. I'm not going to let you go." I told him, he lifted my chin and placed a small, sweet gentle kiss on my lips.  
"I love you Veronica Michelle Hope." he whispered, finally releasing me from his grip.

"Alright," I said with determination looking over to Mr. Crepsley, Darren standing beside me, like he always had before, "I'm ready." Mr. Crepsley bowed his head,

"You are strong Ronnie, now it's time for you, to become a vampire."

I had left my old life behind, and now I was ready to start my new life, my life as a vampire.


	8. Mine

**A/N: Hello everyone! I am back from my trip! So now I have an announcement to make, at the end of this chapter, and all of the next chapter we will have a special guest star! Drum roll please... it's Cassie! From MISSxMAGIC's story The Different Girl. If you haven't read it, I suggest you go do that now, because it's an awesome story and Ronnie will also be appearing in it too! **

_**Currently Listening to: "Mine"- Taylor Swift and "Miss Me"-Drake**_

**_UPDATE: I added a mini song-fic to the end of this chapter_**

Disclaimer: I am not Darren Shan, the only thing I own is Ronnie, thats all. I wish I owned Darren though :(

* * *

_Ronnie's POV_

"Right now?" I said, looking around the graveyard at the orange haired vampire, he scratched his scar that ran along side his face and rolled his eyes, sighing.

"Yes, now Ronnie." he said, I stayed close to Darren's side.

"Is it going to hurt?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I wasn't a weak person, but I was curious, and wasn't a big fan of pain, at all.

"It will hurt when the vampire blood gets to your heart, and a little bit after the change," Mr. Crepsley started, "You're going to hold your hands up and I'm going to make some small incisions in your fingertips with my nails, and then we will exchange blood. You're only going to be a half-vampire though." he finished, my face lit up.

"That's awesome! That means Mr. Tiny was wrong, and I'm not going to be a vampanese!" I said putting my hand in a fist and thrusting it in the air. Little did I know that my happiness would be immediately crushed by Larten.

"Not quite, my dear. You can change from a vampire to a vampanese, it is just a very dangerous process, and not a lot of vampires can make it through that. So there's still a chance that Desmond's prophecy will come true." Mr. Crepsley informed me. I sighed, running my hands through my bangs to get them out of my face.

"Gee thanks, way to kill the moment Mr. C!" I joked. The vampire smirked, something he rarely ever did, and held up his hands. I looked over at Darren as if in approval and he nodded.

_Darren's POV_

Ronnie left my side and strode over to in front of Mr. Crepsley. I silently winced inside every time she left me, because I was scared that it would be the last. She held up her hands, her deep crystal blue eyes, filled with many emotions that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but out of those emotions I could see pain and sadness but they were over-ran by her determination and strength. I envied her a little for this, she had a faith that I thought I could never possess. Mr. Crepsley ran through the same motions that he did with me, when the blood started to exchange, Ronnie fell to the floor. My heart sank as I attempted to run over to her side, help her. I hated seeing her in any kind of pain, but Mr. Crepsley held out his arm.

"Darren, wait. Leave her be." he said, Ronnie stood up. I could see the change already taking effect on her, she was still beautiful as ever. Her long blonde hair flowed down to right above her hips, her skin still sun-kissed and lips a light, yet deep red. Her eyes were still also the same, deep crystal blue that seemed to burn a hole right into your soul. She gritted her teeth as she stood, and walked, more like floated next to me.

"How do you feel?" I asked as she took my hands into hers.

"Well, I can't say I feel normal." she mumbled, leaning up and kissing me with a grin on her lips, and for the first time in a while, I actually felt _lucky._

_Ronnie's POV_

I could feel the venom of the change running through my veins, everything seemed different, I could hear more, smell more I was more aware of the world around me, everything felt like it was brand new. Except for Darren who always made me feel the same whenever I looked at him, my stomach would explode with butterflies, and I would get lightheaded whenever he was close to me. After I kissed him sweetly I turned my attention to Mr. Crepsley.

"Now, back to the Cirque!" he said, turning on his heel and taking two trips to flit back and forth with Darren and I on his back. The days had passed and I had learned everything I had needed to know how to be a half-vampire. When I was confused on what Mr. Crepsley was saying, I would look over to Darren who would put it into terms that I could understand. Apparently, my blood took to the change a little too well, making me a little more than a half-vampire. But not yet whole, there was still a human inside of me, yet I was stronger, and faster than the average half vampire.

I laid in my tent, my hammock swinging back and forth as the sun began to come up. I noticed the flap of my tent peel back, and Darren waltz right in.

"Morning." he said with a smile, I stretched and replied to him through a yawn.

"Goodmorning." I smirked, getting out of the hammock and running over to the side of the boy who had my heart held captive. He smiled wrapping his one arm around my waist, and giving me a sweet, gentle kiss, the same one that had awakened me every day since I had been at the Cirque. I never would have thought I would be here, and if you told me that I would be working at a freak show as a half vampire, in love with a boy who had the same condition himself, I would probably just laugh in your face and shrug it off.

"I have to work with Madame Octa today, so I'm not going to be able to see you until after the show." he frowned, I furrowed my brow. I wasn't apart of the show, but I did help backstage and afterwards selling sweets and collectibles between performers. I had also grown extremely close with the shirtless snake boy, Evra Von. Other than Darren he was my best friend at the Cirque.

"Well, later I might need a little half-vampire... training... er... help?" I said, giving him a wink, he caught on a grinned.

"What?" he asked, thinking for a moment, his face twisted with confusion but then it lit up with understanding, "Ohhhh..." he breathed, his lips turning into a sly grin. "Of course."

After Darren had left my tent, I slid on a pair of dark skinny jeans and tucked them into my black flat-footed boots. They were the only shoes that I would wear, boots, high heeled, knee high, cowboy, you name it. They were my favorite. I put on a black v-neck, and covered my left arm with bracelets, and headed to Evra Von's tent, to occupy myself for a while.

I frowned to myself when I saw that the snake-boy wasn't there.

"Great, what am I supposed to do now?" I said under my breath looking around his tent. I stopped at looked around, and sat on his cot. It never did before, but his guitar caught my attention. I picked it up carefully, Evra would go insane if anything ever happened to his guitar, and sat it on my lap. I never had time to think about music, there was so much going on with being a half vampire and such. I loved music, in my 'old life' I played the guitar and the piano and sang. I played and sang to myself a little, until the snake boy made his grand enterance.

"Ron! I didn't know you played... or sang. Or that you were good!" he said, I smiled and placed his guitar back in its waiting spot.

"Well you, know back in the day..." I started, with a little giggle, "I could shred on the guitar." Evra raised an eyebrow and then laughed.

"I didn't know you liked music, and I know a lot about you, so I'm pretty surprised." he said, picking up his guitar, he started to play and I made my way over to his keyboard and started to accompany him. He nodded his head and grinned, tapping his foot.

"This is awesome!" he said, I laughed and stood up. It was close to showtime.

"Yeah, it was pretty cool! Maybe I'll let you see the songs I write too!" I said with a grin.

"The one you keep underneath your pillow? I already saw those." he said non-nonchalantly. My mouth dropped.

"Evra! Some of those are really personal! What were you doing snooping around my room!" I said putting my hands on my hips.

"Curiosity!" Evra said holding his hands up, he knew I had a hot temper and that I would hurt him.

"You're lucky the shows about to start, but I'm not finished with you Evra Von." I said putting my finger in his face, half kidding. I went back to my tent and got dressed for the show. I always made sure that I was back-stage when Darren was on-stage, he got a little nervous and I loved to be there to give him a little thumbs up when his eyes would travel back to the stage. My eyes scanned the audience, I saw two girls sitting in the front row, the one whispered to the other, probably something about Darren by the way she eyed him. 'He's cute' she said. I forgot that I could hear so well. Good thing I didn't get jealous at all, she was cute. But the girl next to her had awesome fashion sense, two-points for her in my mind. Her brown hair had no bangs and flowed every time she turned her head to talk to her friend. She looked happy, normal. Something that I used to be, it struck a chord in my heart, THAT was something I was jealous of. But deep inside her, I saw pain and a troubled past. It was time for me to walk through the aisles and sell the collectibles, when I passed the girls, the fashionable one looked me up and down.

"I like your boots, they're cute!" Score. Ten-points!

"Thanks." I said with a grin, looking the girl over. That was the last I thought I would see of her, but I was wrong.

When the show was over, we all went to get something to eat which was usually made by Rhamus-Two Bellies, he sure ate a lot, so he was an awesome cook! I was eating when Darren came up behind me,

"I want to show you something." he said, grabbing my hand, I looked at the plate of food I was leaving, _dammit, I really wanted to eat you. _We ran through the forest behind the Cirque, we made being half-vampires kind of a game, I was faster than Darren, but I stayed behind him, because he was showing me where to go.

We ended at a large river, the green was light and the fireflies danced around, my mouth dropped. It was beautiful. The nearby town peeked through the trees and the small city's lights made its way through the various tree's the sky dark, and starless from the lights, but they lights played on the lake. Darren sat down at the edge of the creek and I went and sat down next to him, looking deep into his brown eyes, the life and care sparkled in Darren's eyes like the lights on the water.

_Do you remember all the city lights on the water?_  
_You saw me start to believe for the first time_

"This place, its..." I started but I then was interrupted by explosions in the sky. Fireworks.

"There's a theme park near by, and this is the only place where you can see the fire-works they set off. I thought you'd like to see them." He said sweetly, damn you Darren Shan, you're perfect.

I looked up to the sky, Darren wrapped his arm around me, and I scooted over closer to him, and laid my head on his shoulder. I smiled at the lights playing off the water, and the feeling of simple-happiness it gave me. The fireworks ended, and I looked over at Darren and placed my hands on his face, kissing him sweetly.

"Ronnie, you're the best thing thats ever happened to me, I'll always be here." he whispered.

_Braced myself for the goodbye, cause that's all I've ever known_  
_Then, you took me by surprise_  
_You said, "I'll never leave you alone."_

The whole world stopped around us, everything was gone. There was no Cirque, there were no vampanese. There were no little people to feed, collectibles to sell, wolf-man to feed. There was no orange haired vampire to bark lessons and orders at us. There was no person in the world who could tell us what our destiny was. There was no vampanese, no Steve Leopard, no confusion, there were no cares in the world, there was no change, no pain, no sadness, no good-byes. I wasn't alone, I wasn't afraid to fall in love anymore. My guard was down and I wasn't afraid to fall. I let go of everything that's been holding me back. There was no worries about the end. I wasn't thinking about what I was going to do next, I wasn't worrying about the risk. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and took the step and fell right into it. There was nothing I didn't want. There was just us.

_You said, "I remember how we felt, sitting by the water._  
_And every time I look at you, it's like the first time._  
_I fell in love with a careless man's careful daughter._  
_She is the best thing that's ever been mine."_

_I can see it now_

_"You're the best thing thats ever been mine."_ I said quietly.

I smiled and kissed him again. Darren stood up and then helped me up,

"We should head back now, want to race?" he said with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

"Want to lose?" I joked. At that he turned on his heel and took off running. "Darren Shan! You cheater!" I yelled, laughing and starting to run. I passed him up, about two minutes away from the Cirque, we both skidded to a stop when we saw a crowd around the platform and the girl from the show! Mr. Tall stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

"Everyone, this is Cassandra, she'll be staying with us." he said in his deep, low voice. We walked up behind Evra, and then made out way over to the 'new girl'.

"Hello again!" I said, smiling.

"Hey there!" She said, "I'm Cassie!" she held out her hand and shook it.

"Ronnie" I replied, but I also noticed that her focus wasn't fully on me, but on the snake-boy Evra Von. Oooohh, this is going to be fun. Ronnie the match-maker mode, on.


	9. Cassie

**A/N: Alright, so heres the next chapter for the story. There will be Cassie in the next two or so chapters coming up, so be ready for that! Make sure to review, then you might get another chapter a lot sooner, and get me motivated, wink wink.**

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Cirque Du Freak series, I wish I did cause that would be really cool... I don't own Cassie either, that's MissXMagic's. What do I own? Ronnie. And this story. Thats all. _

_**Listening To: "Teenage Dream" Katy Perry**_

I walked Cassie around the Cirque for a while, showing her the way along the long walkways between the tents, the lights hanging above them. I kicked a rock with the tip of my boot laughing as I walked along with Cassie, showing her the way to where she would be staying.

"So, what do you think about Mr. Tall?" I said, trying to casually slide into the conversation about what she thought about Evra.

"He seems really nice, he was nice enough to give me a home at the Cirque!" Cassie replied with promise in her voice.

"How about... lets say, Evra Von?" I said looking over to Cassie with a smile spread on my lips. Cassie though for a second, her eyes connected with mine and she let out a small, laugh.

"He seems, like an interesting person." she said cooly, dang it. She was just as good at the game as I was, she didn't give anything away. I would have to be a little more straight forward. If she was interested, I would for sure get Evra's opinion and try and get them together.

"Cute?" I said nudging her and raising an eyebrow,

Cassie didn't say anything, until I placed my hands in my back pockets infront of her tent, and stared at her.

"Yeah." Cassie replied. I turned around and spread out my arms,

"This is your tent, I'll see you in the morning. I guess I'll be showing you around tomorrow too!" It surprised me that I actually liked this girl! I didn't get along with girls very well a lot of the time, but Cassie was the exception.

I walked down a couple a tents to Darren's listeneing closely before I pulled back the entrance of his tent, making sure I wasn't interrupting anything. I smiled when she saw Evra in there, and sat on Darren's lap a michevious gleam in my eye along with the grin on my face.

"Oh no, what're you up to?" Darren said putting his arms around me and resting them on my legs.

"Nothing, nothing." I said with a wave of my hand, I looked over at Evra, he jumped a little at my sudden glance.

"So Evra, what do you think of Cassie?" I said, "She seems really nice, and she's super cute!"

Darren rolled his eyes a little, he knew exactly what I was up to. I set up one of his friends and one of his fellow lunch soccer team mates up with one of my friends Katy Williams. Darren saw it happen and was pretty upset that he lost a team mate to my awesome match-making skills. Evra looked down at his chest,

"Yeah she is. But I don't think I'm her type." he said laughing as he lifted his hands showing the scales on his chest. I stood up off Darren's lap and went over and looked down at him.

"Evra, what are you talking about? You're a heart throb!" I said placing my hands jokingly over my chest, after seeing that he wasn't laughing I became a little more serious.

"You never know, but if she WAS interested, you would be interested too?"

"Well, yeah." Perfect. All I needed to know. I smiled and walked over to Darren,  
"I'll see you tomorrow, I think I have to help Rhamus in the morning with breakfast, so I'll see you then." I said pulling him close for a quick kiss, and then walked out of his tent, waving to Evra.

My mental alarm clock went off around six, most of the Cirque members woke up really early and there was a lot of people to feed so it took a while to prepare breakfast. I walked over and made the eggs and toast while Rhamus made the bacon, I didn't do well around fire, it would probably end in disaster. The only damage I could do making eggs and toast was to break the yolk, or make the toast a little too crunchy, so we decided that I would be better at it. Cassie came before Evra, sitting down at one of the wooden tables set out for the Cirque members. I made my way over to her, placing down plate of food in front of her, her face instantly brightened.  
"Thanks Ronnie!" She said instantly digging into her food, I laughed and nodded my head. I saw Evra coming up around the baracades of tents, and his glance caught mine. I lifted up a plate and showed him that it was his, and then placed it right next to Cassie. He rolled his eyes, he knew what I was up to, but he sat down right next to her, and took the bait.

"Hey guys." He said with a snakey-grin, Cassie looked over still chewing, finished and then flashed him a smile.

"Hi!" we both said, greeting him.

"So, Evra hows the music making going?" I said, before Evra could reply, Cassie turned herself on the bench to look at him.

"You write music? Thats cool!" she said with a grin, "I just listen to it, but it's awesome that your a musician." Evra blinked his eyes, looked at me, and then back at Cassie.

"Yeah, I do. I'd love to show you some of the stuff I've come up with?" he said flashing her his teeth while running his hands through his hair.

"Sure, I'd love to hear it," Cassie said, not taking her eyes off of Evra, "I never noticed, the color of your eyes..."

"Yeah, they're yellow." he grumbled

"No, they're... gold." Cassie answered, Evra immediately lightened up. _Gotcha. _

"Oh Ronnie! Crepsley wants to see you in his tent, he has something to tell you and Darren." Evra said, looking over to me, and then quickly back to Cassie.

"Alright, I'll leave you two here to eat then." I said, walking behind Cassie and giving Evra a thumbs up, he stuck his tongue out at me.

"Wow! You're tongue is super long." Cassie exclaimed, Evra began to show her his signature, yet kind of gross trick where he licked his nose, "Cool!"

I laughed and ran my hands through my hair as I walked over to Mr. Crepsley's tent,

"Mr.C?" I said

"Come on in, Ronnie." I heard the vampire respond. I peeked my head in and already saw Darren sitting, a look on his face that made me kind of nervous. I sat down next to him, taking his hand in mine, and turning my attention to Mr. Crepsley.

"Darren, Ronnie. We're leaving the Cirque and heading to Vampire Mountain."

**A/N: I hope you guys liked this chapter, I don't think it was one of my best, but none the less its a chapter! I'll have the next one up soon, even sooner if you review! R&R 3**


	10. The New Journey

**A/N: Hi guys! So here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it! I also would like to say thank you for the reviews that I have gotten so far, and keep them coming! :) **

_**Disclaimer: I'm not Darren Shan, so I don't own any of these super awesome characters. I don't own Cassie, whose owned by the awesome MissXMagic. But I do own Ronnie, and she's...**_

_**Ronnie: -evil glare- **_

_**Me: Awesome?**_

_Currently Listening To: "Just The Way You Are"- Bruno Mars, "Not Like The Movies"-Katy Perry_

I looked over at Darren, seeing he was just as lost as I was, I spoke up.

"Vampire Mountain? What's that?" I asked, a grin slowly making it's way on Mr. Crepsley's lips.

"Well, every twelve years there is a gathering at Vampire Mountain, we will be making the trek up there so I can present you to the vampire princes." He answered cooly.

"Alright, so what should we pack? Is it cold?" I asked, my girl instincts kicking in.

"No, you do not bring anything. You have to make the trek up to Vampire Mountain, with only the clothes on your back, and barefoot. Once you make it up there you can get shoes and new clothes."

"Well, that's going to be hard for you, since you have to flit up there twice." Darren said, speaking up.

"No flitting is allowed. We're all going to be walking up there, on our own."

"Well not all by yourself." A voice boomed. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I could feel the shiver that ran through Darren's body, Mr. Crepsley closed his eyes and took in a sharp intake of air, and opened them to see Mr. Tiny standing in the doorway, playing with his heart watch.

"Some of my little people will be accompanying you." He said, Mr. Crepsley's face instantly turned maroon with anger.  
"Definitely not! I already have to take care of Ronnie and Darren, I'm not going to be worrying about your little people as well!" Larten spat.

"Oh no need. They will not fall behind, and they will feed themselves. I insist that you take them, they are needed up at Vampire Mountain." Mr. Tiny cooed, scanning his eyes over Darren and I. We sat there watching Mr. Crepsley finally calm down and nod his head, knowing that he would not win this argument with Mr. Tiny. I felt the man's gaze on me, I almost felt nauseous when I heard my name roll off of his lips.

"Ronnie, you are quite a fine Vampire, seems your not just a half vampire, your blood has taken to the change a little more well than Master Shan's here. But that makes you stronger, stronger than you already were on your own. You have a lot in store for the two of you, your going to make me so proud!" He said, with an evil chuckle. I looked over at Darren whose face was pale, I gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and he returned it.

"Well, I am off. Goodbye." Mr. Tiny said taking a turn on his heel and walking out of the tent. Mr. Crepsley was still upset, so he didn't bother to make eye contact with us.

"Get some sleep, and enjoy your day off tomorrow. We leave the next morning." he grunted. Darren and I stood up, walking out of the tent.

"We're going to make him proud?" I said, knowing that Darren would know exactly what I was talking about.

"He's a sick minded guy, I'm scared to know HOW we're going to make him proud." he said with his hands in his pockets. "Ronnie, I don't know how I would do all of this without you by my side." he breathed. I smiled and looked over at him, still walking towards his tent

"I don't know what I would do without you at all." I said, he looked over at me and smiled, my heart jumped. We made it to the outside of Darren and Evra's tent, I could hear the people's voices inside.

"Evra, you're amazing!" I heard Cassie swoon.

"Thanks, you were kind of the inspiration for it." we heard Evra answer.

Darren and I entered the tent, we saw Cassie sitting on Evra's cot, it was late at night so she was dressed in a tank-top and shorts, her brown hair pulled up. Evra sat shirtless, as always with his guitar sitting on his lap.

"Have you two been together... all day?" I asked with a raise of my brow.

"Well, since breakfast." Cassie answered. _Damn, I was better at this than I thought! _I had almost forgotten that I had to break the news to my best friend, and my new friend that I would be leaving.

"What did Crepsley had to tell you?" Evra said, almost on a cue.

"We're leaving." I sighed.

"What do you mean, your leaving? Where are you going?" Cassie said, her brows scrunching together.

"We're going to Vampire Mountain." Darren answered, standing next to me. It felt like we were telling our children that Santa Clause wasn't real from the look that were on Cassie and Evra's faces.

"But we're not leaving right now!" I said, trying to cheer up the mood in the tent, "We have the day off all day tomorrow! But we leave that night. I want to have one on one time with both of you tomorrow, kay?" I said, I looked at Cassie and then at Evra, I knew they wouldn't be too sad with Darren and I gone, I could practically see the sparks flying whenever their eyes made contact.

"Well, how about we bunk together tonight, since it's your last night at the Cirque?" Cassie said, I grinned at the idea, I didn't know how long it was since I had a sleepover.

"Yeah sure!" I said, motioning Cassie to come with me, since I was extremely tired and ready to go to sleep.

"Goodnight." I said softly to Darren, brushing his brown hair away from his eyes, and kissing him on his soft lips. Cassie and I giggled and gossiped like your average teenage girls on the way to my tent, talking about the bad outfits we've encountered,

"I hate the whole brown and black combination, I do not think you can wear them together!" I said as we walked into my tent. I changed into my clothes and laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling with the lights off.

"Ronnie?" Cassie said from the dark silence, I forgot about the late night talks.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"Are you ever scared?" she asked simply. I thought for a second, I never had time to think about my fears, and I WAS scared.

"Yeah, I'm actually scared right now." I said, tears welled up in my eyes, but I forced them to stay there.

"So, Evra?" I said, prodding at the situation at hand.

"He's really sweet, and cute, and he makes me laugh, and-"

"-you've totally fallen for him." I finished for her. She laughed and replied,

"Kind of. I can't say I'm head over heels, but I'm definitely crushing!"

"Good, you can take care of him while I'm gone. He's a great kid, don't hurt him!" I said, kind of defensive of the snake boy.

"I wouldn't dream of it." Cassie replied, and for one time in my life, I actually believed what someone said.

"Good. Goodnight Cassie, thanks for being a good friend." I said, "I'm going to miss you."

"You're not leaving yet! Put off the goodbyes for as long as we can!" Cassie answered. I giggled and turned over, falling into a dreamless sleep.

**A/N: I hope you like it! For those who are wondering Steve WILL be back, but I'm not going to tell you when. I have it totally figured out ;) now review review the button is riiiiiight under here, so go on, click it, I dare you. You know you want to! **


	11. Evra's Nightmares

**A/N: Hello my lovely readers! So here is the next chapter, I hope you enjoy it! There isn't that much Cassie in this chapter, but she will be in the next two or so, so do not worry! Also, please R&R your reviews mean a lot to me and really make a difference in my work ethic! I also don't mind if you send me a message, I love talking to you guys! So here it is, enjoy!**

_**Disclaimer: I'm not Darren Shan, so I don't own Darren or any of his characters that I wish I owned! MissXMagic is the owner of Cassie.**_

_Listening to: "Set Fire To The Third Bar"- Snow Patrol_

My eyes opened quickly, I heard a rustling around the outside of my tent. I casually looked over to Cassie, who was sound asleep. I sighed, my vampire senses kicking in as my feet hit the floor, it was dark, but my eyes easily adjusted to see what was around me. I peeked my head outside of my tent, and looked to see a lonely Evra Von walking down the selection of tents, his hands in his pockets. I grabbed one of my jackets and threw it over my shoulders, and slipping on a pair of Ugg boots that I had under my hammock.

"Evra?" I called quietly, trying not to alarm him, he was walking alone.

"Hey Ronnie, did I wake you up?" he asked. I shook my head,  
"Not really, I was awake anyways," I lied. "What're you doing?"

"Just taking a walk, I had a nightmare." he answered. I closed my eyes and breathed out, I knew exactly why the snake boy was having these nightmares, I thought they had stopped, but they must have resurfaced again. It started when Evra, Darren and I went along with Mr. Crepsley to his home town. Mr. Crepsley thought that it would be a good idea to take Evra along for this one time, because we would only be leaving the Cirque for a little while, and since he was our best friend, it would keep us busy.

_A couple of months earlier_

"_Where do you think he's going every night?" Darren asked, his eyes gleamed with curiousity._

"_I have no idea, but do you really think that he could be killing all of these people?" Evra said, referring to what we saw on the news a couple of days earlier. Victims were found, drained of their blood, killed viciously._

"_It could be a mad vampeneze or something like that." I said, trying to clear Mr. Crepsley's name._

"_Well whatever he is doing, we're going to have to find out!" Darren said, Evra immediately perked up at the sound of getting out of the hotel room that we had been occupying for a week or so now. _

"_Cool! Like a ninja mission or something?" Evra asked, I rolled my eyes stood up from the bed that I was laying on._

"_Well, if we're going to try and see what Mr. Crepsley is up to, we better get ready because he'll be up any minute." I said, looking at the clock that was by the bed side. Darren went into the room to pull on his jacket, I walked into the room, looking at myself in the mirror, it was crazy how I looked so much the same yet so much different. I still looked like a sixteen year old girl, even though a couple of years had passed, this was because half-vampires aged at fifth of the human rate. Yet my eyes were a deep, darker blue, my skin was completely flaw-less, clear of the teenage blemishes that would normally be inhabiting a sixteen- year old girl's face. I put on a long coat, even though I didn't get cold, it would look strange if I was walking around in a tank top and shorts in the summer time. I walked out of the room seeing Evra bundled up in his scarves, and other pieces of clothing that we had chosen to cover his scales. It would just save us a lot of time if we didn't have to stop and explain why our 'brother' was covered in scales. We left the hotel room and entered the snowy streets, picking up some walkie talkies from a store nearby to our hotel. _

"_Ok, when Mr. Crepsley leaves I'm going to watch him from the rooftops, while you and Evra stay on the ground, just incase I lose him." Darren said. _

"_Alright, sounds good. But don't let him see you!" I said, I could just imagine if Mr. Crepsley saw him, I could just imagine what he would say. _

_'Oh hey Darren! Why are you following me?' and then Evra and I buzzing in on the walkie talkie, 'Darren! Is he the killer or what!' That wouldn't be great._

"_Oh please, come on Ronnie, I'm not a complete idiot, I won't be seen." Darren snorted. _

_When we arrived back into the hotel, Mr. Crepsley was just shuffling out of his coffin, he looked at the three of us with an eyebrow raised, but he didn't say anything about it, the three of us were always up to something, but never any kind of trouble that would get us found out or draw attention to us. He shrugged and walked out of the room and we all looked at each other, counting a couple of seconds._

"_Game on!" Evra said in a hushed tone, we all nodded and began our pursuit of the red-headed vampire. _

"_Where's he headed to?" Evra asked into the walkie talkie, as we slowly padded down the streets, I would casually look up and see Darren jump from building to building.  
"I don't know. If I knew, we'd probably would have just staked out there, wouldn't we?" Darren answered._

"_Woah, no need to get defensive!" Evra joked. _

"_Wait, he stopped." Darren said. That was the last thing I heard, there was complete blackness, and I heard a soft cackle, _

"_Clever Murlough hit the jackpot he did." _

**A/N: Heh, sorry for the kind of cliff hanger thing. Even though its just a flash back, it still is a little suspense-ful! I'm re-reading the whole Saga, which is giving me so many more ideas to write for this story! So please R&R and a thank you for my reviewers so far! **

**Vampire Leprechaun, blu-3y3s, Misty Snape, writerprincess94, Jessie Shan and InkShaper :) **


	12. Got a secret?

**A/N: So here we go, heres the new chapter! I got a sudden burst of reviews that made me really, really happy! I checked my phone and saw all of them, its great! Thank you for that! Please keep reviewing, and you'll make me the happiest girl out there! Thank you to my wonderful reviewers, _ BlueMoon1334, Blu-3y3s, InkShaper and Slytherin Queen 1.30! _Cassie will be making her last appearance in the next chapter! **

_Disclaimer: I do not own any of this amazing characters that belong to Darren Shan, I also don't own Cassie, she's MissXMagic's. I do own Ronnie though! _

_**Currently Listening To: "Lost" Katy Perry, "The Few That Remains" Set Your Goals**_

_I started to come too, I felt terrible. My head was pounding, and I felt my hair falling above me. I was upside down, when I tried to move I saw that my hands and arms were bounded together to my sides by strong ropes, and I was hung upside down from the ceiling by my feet. _

"_R-R-Ronnie?" I heard Evra choke out, I heard in his voice that he was holding back tears._

"_I'm here Evra! Don't worry! I'll get us out of here!" I said looking around the room, I could see that we were in some sort of cavern, pipes were leaking from the ceiling._

"_Hello, hello Murlough just loves having company." Someone said from the shadows, the mysterious voice showed himself. He has crimson red eyes and purple tinted skin. A vampaneze. His teeth were long sharp, and bloodstained and so were his fingernails. _

"_Who the hell are you?" I growled, I never knew that I could growl before. But I sounded kind of intimidating I liked it! _

"_I am Murlough, and you and snakey snakey are going to be Murlough's christmas dinner, unless you tell me where Loopy Larten and Ditzy Darren are" the vampire said, pulling a long knife out of his cloak. Evra winced, I knew that Murlough must have been torturing Evra before I came to. He came close to my face, and his breath smelled foul.  
"Go to hell." I spat, Murlough threw his head back and cackled madly. He became deadly serious and made a deep slice in my stomach, I bit my lip and made it bleed, the coppery liquid filling in my mouth, tears starting to form in my eyes, but I wouldn't let Murlough hear me cry out. He went back and forth between Evra and I, making a slice in us when we wouldn't tell him what he wanted to hear. I was starting to get lightheaded from the loss of blood, the pain was unbearable, my bloodstained cheeks were cleaned by the tears that flowed out of my eyes. I looked over at Evra, he was missing some scales and was cut up pretty bad._

"_Evra, I'm sorry." I struggled to say, _

"_This isn't your fault." Evra said just to be silenced again from Murlough's knife.  
"Stop! Leave him alone!" I pleaded, each one of Evra's screams audible in my ears and hurting more than the dagger that Murlough kept punishing us with. The mad vampanese came close to me_

"_Shhhh. Murlough is just having a little fun, I don't want to have to hurt your pretty blonde little self more than he has, Murlough is having a honest good time." He turned around, I knew he heard the same thing as I did, there was someone walking through the tunnels, screaming Evra and I's name. My heart stopped and I started to cry even harder, it was Darren. _

"_Oh I think I found Dopey Darren!" Murlough laughed_

"_No no no! Please leave him alone!" I screamed, thrashing against the ropes._

"_Murlough hit the jackpot, Stupid Shan is your little boyfriend hmm?" he whispered in my ear_

"_I'll kill you." I growled once again, Murlough took his hand back and hit me across the face, silencing me once again and causing me to black out. When I came to, I saw Darren looking over me, his eyes were red and shot, probably from crying. My I opened my eyes, it was a struggle, but all I saw was blood. Everywhere. I was covered from head to toe in the crimson substance, the thing that bothered me even more is that it was my blood. _

"_Darren," I cried, I finally let lose crying hysterically. I had to stop because with each intake of air, it felt as though the daggers were still inside me. "Where's Evra?" I panicked._

"_He's ok. Mr. Crepsley killed Murlough, and Evra is recovering, just like you are. Everything's going to be ok. Just rest, please." he begged, brushing my hair out of my eyes. I just nodded my head, Darren leaned down and kissed my lips, and I fell into a deep sleep._

"Sorry about that again Evra." I said looking down at my scars that were still visible on my body. He looked at me and smiled,

"Once again, it wasn't your fault. Atleast we got out of there alive!" He said, trying to make light of the memory that was still vivid in both of our minds.

"I'm going to miss you and Darren." Evra confessed, I looked over at him and made a huge grin.

"Oh Evvie-boo! I'm going to miss you too" I said pinching his cheeks, he swatted me away and rubbed his face.

"Just don't do anything stupid, ok?" He said with full honesty. I rolled my eyes,

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Now go back to sleep!" I said turning back on my heel, and walking back to my tent.

"Oh Ronnie!" he called out, I turned around and raised a brow. "Thanks for setting me up with Cassie, I'm really happy."

"Of course, it was my pleasure." I walked back into my tent and laid in my bed, Cassie was still fast asleep, not moving from where I had left her. My thoughts settled in my head and I was able to easily fall back to sleep.

"Roooonnnnieeee!" I heard Cassie say in a sing-song voice. I groaned and put my pillow over my face. "Get up lazy! We have a lot to do today!" Cassie said, I could hear the scowl in her voice.

"Fine, lets go!" I said sitting up with a grin. We walked over to breakfeast and saw Darren and Evra already sit down, I went and scooted next to Darren while Cassie went and sat next to Evra. I pulled Darren's face into a long kiss,  
"Goodmorning." He grinned his boyish grin.

"Morning" I greeted, I already heard Cassie laughing and talking to Evra.  
"Look at them!" I whispered to Darren and pointed to Cassie and Evra who were flirting away.

"Oh I know, he was talking about her all night." Darren replied.

The four spent their last day walking around the Cirque, Ronnie was going to miss everyone. Truska gave her a new pair of clothes to wear for her trip to Vampire Mountain, Ronnie thanked her and the woman barked back something that Ronnie hoped was a welcome. Evra was the only one that understood her and was able to talk to her.

"She says it's her pleasure." Evra said, showing off his ability to Cassie, who Truska had already sitting in a chair and was putting her fingers through the girls hair.  
"Truska, we have to leave, so we kind of need Cassie." Evra blushed, pulling Cassie out of Truska's chair. The night came and it was going to be their last night at the Cirque, so there was a barbeque being held for Ronnie and Darren, Cassie walked into Ronnie's tent while she was getting ready for the night ahead of her. Cassie was dressed very stylishly, something that Ronnie had grown used to. She always was an amazing dresser.  
"You ready to go?" Cassie asked.

"No, not at all." Ronnie said truthfully, she didn't want to leave the Cirque. "Cassie, I've been holding a lot back, theres some stuff... stuff I haven't told anyone. You've been such a good friend, and I know I can trust you, you might want to sit down."

**A/N: Ah! Yes I kinda had a cliff hanger again! What is Ronnie going to tell Cassie? How will she react! Cassie won't be leaving without a bang! ;) Oh I'm so evil sometimes xD Make sure to review, it will get the next chapter up even faster! I also have an announcement that I am also on DeviantArt now, my username is the same as my pen name on here, so check it out to see works of Ronnie and other of your favorite Cirque Du Freak characters! -slapped- review review review please! **


	13. Swear this one you'll keep

**A/N: So here is the next installment in One Freakish Love! I think this might be the last chapter with Cassie for a while, but she is a very important part of the story! I hope you enjoy!**

_**Here is a thanks to my beautiful and lovely reviewers of the last chapter, BlueMoon1334, Blu-3y3s and InkShaper. Keep them coming! Reviews are my anti-drug ;) **_

**Disclaimer: I do not own these super amazing characters that I dream of, they are owned by Darren Shan, also Cassie is MissXMagic's property. But I do own Ronnie! **

_Listening to: Secret; The Pierces (What I'm listening to is relevant to the chapter most of the time, turn on the song while you're reading, it might intensify the effect!)_

Cassie nodded her head, the brown locks the framed her face falling onto her shoulders.

"But two things, you have to SWEAR not to tell anyone." I started, putting out my pinky finger, I never dared to break a pinky-promise, even though it wasn't as strong as a patented lock, I thought pinky-promises are super serious. Cassie held up her finger and interlocked it with mine, "And you have to promise not to scream."

"Alright, you're kind of freaking me out, what is it?" Cassie said, her eyes shining with curiousity.

"Well, if you haven't known, Darren and I are vampires." I breathed, Cassie didn't seem alarmed at all, I had to bring her through the whole question and answer process that I had once went through, we don't kill the people that we feed on, we can go out in the sun, because Darren and I are only half vampires, holy water doesn't cause a threat to us, crosses and garlic are just a waste of time blah, blah, blah.

"But that's not all." I started, "See, there's this kid named Steve, he went to school with Darren and I, he showed up at my house, and tried to confort me. Don't get me wrong, I love Darren, more than anything."

"I know that, I wish I could have a love like yours." Cassie swooned, I smiled, she was the only person who would listen to me without judging me, she knew that I was a vampire and I was hoping that she wouldn't judge me for what happened next.

"Well, Steve showed up again, and this time, he was a vampaneze-"

"-No way!" Cassie said hushed, her eyes wide, paying attention like it was a dramatic movie.

"Yes, way." I said forcing a grin, "But heres the bad part, he kissed me. And I kissed him back."

"That's not good." Cassie said, her lips pressing into a faint line.

"But, I wouldn't ever do it again, it was a long time ago and before all these things that Darren and I went through and no matter how much I want to, I can't tell Darren. Not just because I'm afraid that I'll break his heart, Steve is a vampaneze, and Mr. C would flip. But that's not the most disturbing part."

"Oh god, it gets worse!" Cassie asked, she had scooted closer to me, as we were both sitting cross legged on the floor, she placed her hand on my thigh, right when she saw I was starting to get upset.

"A couple of nights ago, I've been having these nightmares, they're the most realistic thing that I have ever imagined. I woke up a couple of times, and there was blood. All over me, under my nails, everywhere." Tears started to well up in my eyes, nothing hurts more than confusion. "I don't know whose it was, but I'm seriously afraid that I hurt someone, I'm not a killer, Cassie. But then when I went over to the creek to wash myself off, Mr. Tiny was there." Cassie took in a sharp intake of air at the man's name, even though she had never met him, she heard the tales of the truly evil man. Tears started to fall silently down my cheeks, not changing the tone in my voice, only messing up my makeup.

"He told me, that there was something evil inside me, that I have this rage, that is being begged to let out, and in time, during certain events, it will be. And that the Vampaneze lord is going to rise, and I'll be his Lady." I spat disgustedly, I looked up in Cassie's eyes, I expected to see fear, but instead I saw pity, and her eyes start to well up.

"Tiny said that the prophecy can change, I know I'm not a killer, I wouldn't ever do anything to hurt anyone" I said putting my head in my hands, this was the first time I had told anyone, and it hurt even worse repeating my unknown fate.

"Ronnie, no matter what anyone says, you can control your own destiny. What people say you're going to be, doesn't change who you really are," She began, looking in my eyes, firmly, "You control your destiny, and the only person that can change you, is yourself."* I nodded, her words felt as though they lifted a big weight off of my shoulders, it was true. I wouldn't become evil unless I let myself, if I kept my views and stayed true to myself, that wouldn't happen.

"Now, let's get all that black out from under your eyes, and have fun at this B-B-Q!" Cassie said running a q-tip under my eye makeup and picking me up off the floor. I rubbed my nose with the back of my sleeve, my signature Ronnie crying move, and followed Cassie out of my tent. The Cirque looked almost as beautiful as it did the first day I came. There was a large bonfire in the middle of the site, the sparks that escaped burned wildly until the hit the floor and sizzled to nothing. I sat next to Darren who was chatting with Evra. Cormac Limbs, and other members of the Cirque came up one by one and said goodbye, Truska gave me a really cool bracelet that had a cross hanging off of it. I laughed because it was pretty ironic. Throughout all of these goodbyes I would casually glance over at Darren who would give me a small smile, and a squeeze of my hand.

"I can't believe you guys are leaving!" Evra said

"It's going to be pretty boring without you here!" Cassie said

"Yeah, especially because I can't find anything cool in your tent anymore." Evra snorted. I gave him a glare, and he lifted his hands up, "I'm kidding! I'm kidding!" he pleaded.

"Kind of." he added under his breath, my vampire ears picked up his snicker, but I decided to just ignore it.

Mr. Crepsley came up behind Darren and I,  
"We are going to be departing tonight, so say your final goodbyes, and then we will be off." He said. I nodded my head, and walked over and gave Evra a hug.

"Please, TRY and stay out of trouble" I breathed.

"Yeah, yeah mom, I'll try!" Evra played. Darren was next to me,

"You kind of do sound like a mom." he played, I gave him a playful shove. Finally I walked over to Cassie, I was going to miss her the most.  
"Bye, Cass." I said giving her a long hug, squeezing her tightly, making sure to be a little gentle, because I didn't want my friend to snap in half in my grasp. "Take good care of Evra." I said with a wink.

"Will do Ron." She said.  
I turned to Mr. Crepsley, who stood there majestically.

"Are you two ready?" he asked. I exchanged glances with Darren,

"Not really, but I haven't had much a say in anything since you blooded me." Darren smirked.

"As ready as I'll ever be." I said after him. Mr. Crepsley turned on his heel, and we started to walk away from the Cirque, onto a new adventure, onto Vampire Mountain.

**A/N: This chapter was more of a filler than anything, but the next chapter gets... well, you'll see! I also want to start another story, to keep my busy along with this story. Who should my OC be paired up with, Vancha or Evra? (:**

***Remember what Cassie says, this is probably the most important thing said in this story.**


	14. Gavner Purl

**A/N: Hello, my readers! Sorry that this update took a little longer than the ones prior to this, but I actually have been busy these past couple of days! But here is the new chapter, and I hope you enjoy it! Also, it was just hard for me to let Cassie go, because she is a very important part of the story line! So she isn't leaving yet! How will Cassie still be apart of the story if they're going to Vampire Mountain? You'll see. Shouts to my lovely reviewers, Sakura, BlueMoon1334, Ink Shaper, Blu-3y3s, Steffffles, Slytherin Queen 1.30 and MissXMagic!**

_**Disclaimer: I am not Darren Shan, so I only own Ronnie, but MissXMagic owns Cassie!**_

_Listening To: Fall To Pieces- Avril Lavigne (Ronnie's song to Darren)_

And then, we were off. Darren and I didn't even know where Vampire Mountain was, but I didn't have the urge to ask Mr. Crepsley, I just hoped that it wasn't that far. Darren and I passed most of the time, talking about nothing, basically.

"I wonder, what it would be like, if we had fangs like Dracula" I said, placing my fingers on my teeth.

"I think it would be cool! I'm pretty disappointed that we don't have any, thats the one thing I liked about vampires" Darren said, with a small frown on his face.

"But I think it would be cool if we had those accents, and would be able to be like, 'I vant to suck your blood'!"

"Enough!" Mr. Crepsley said, interrupting Darren and I's mindless chatter, "I have been listening to you two talk about the most ridiculous things for miles now!" he seemed frusterated.

"Sorry Mr. C" I said, looking at Darren, who locked eyes with me, laughing a little.

"That would be cool, though." Darren said under his breath. I held in my laughter. We began walking up a large path, that was surrounded by many trees, and wild-life. Suddenly, we were ambushed, I couldn't see the face of the vampire, I assumed it to be a vampire, because I human could not move at such a speed, but his blade pressed against my throat. I closed my eyes tightly, great. I didn't want to die like this! Maybe if I pushed the knife at the perfect angle I could-

"Gavner!" Mr. Crepsley boomed, a wide grin on his face.

"You know him!" I gasped.

"Why is he trying to kill us?" Darren asked, his eyes wide and still looking at the knives pressed to our throats. The man smiled and freed us from the grip that he had.

"Ronnie, Darren, this is Gavner Purl. He is a very old friend of mine." Mr. Crepsley said.

"You didn't seem very surprised." Gavner said with a frown.

"Gavner, I heard you from a mile away. You're going to need to try harder than that." Mr. Crepsley said placing his hand on his shoulder.

Gavner shook the bummed look off of his face, and smiled offering his hand to me.

"Hello" I greeted, returning the handshake, he kept his eyes locked on mine.  
"You're eyes, they're very... powerful." He said, shaking my hand firmly. Darren gave him a small glare, Gavner didn't catch it, but it made me smile, I didn't like Darren to be jealous but it made me feel a little happy. Gavner went on to introduce himself to Darren. Mr. Crepsley and Gavner walked infront of Darren and I, we heard them talking in hushed tone.

"As if blooding one child wasn't bad enough, but you've gone and blooded two? The princes aren't going to be very happy." Gavner whispered sharply.

"I know, I know." Mr. Crepsley replied "But I will deal with the consequences that they give me."

Gavner turned around and grinned at Darren and I,

"Are you two excited to get to vampire mountain?" he asked, I looked down at my bare feet as they padded through the snow.

"I'm excited to just get there, I'm freezing and I can't feel my feet anymore." I whined.

Darren looked behind us at the two little people, they didn't seem to be struggling.

"You holding up okay, Lefty?" Darren asked, referring to the little person with the limp, of course, he didn't reply, but held up a hand.

Darren looked at me and interlaced his fingers with mine, giving me a small smile. I held on tightly, as we continued to walk up.

|"We are coming close to a station where we can make a fire and get some sleep before we continue." Mr. Crepsley said, not looking at us and keeping his eyes on the frosty trail. The cold wind was harsh, and showed no mercy as it blew on our faces, making my nose run, and my cheeks flush.

"Do all vampires use the rest stations?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Not all do, most do not believe in them, but some vampires, do." he answered walking to the opening of a cave. I walked over to Darren and held onto him tightly, shivering.

"I. Am. Freezing." I said as he wrapped his arms around me.

"Me too. I can't even feel my face anymore." he answered, I lifted up my hand and placed them on his cheeks, they were cold. I smiled and kissed his lips softly, I went to pull back but he leaned forward catching my lips again and kissing me, putting my hips closer to him as he leaned against the wall of the outside of the cave. His tongue traced the entrance of my lips and I let out a sigh of pleasure.

"I see that they're together?" I heard Gavner comment to Mr. Crepsley.

"Very much so." I heard Mr. Crepsley reply, I could hear his eyes rolling in his tone of voice. I smiled and continued kissing Darren.

"Oh my god." I heard Gavner exclaim. I broke off our kiss and grabbed Darren's hand pulling him over to the entrance of the cave. I looked inside and saw it painted with crimson. Blood. But it wasn't the same as the blood that I had been accustomed to drinking, it had a foul smell to it.

"Blood." I said, covering my nose with my arm, "But what's wrong with it?" I asked.

"Its the blood of a vampaneze." Mr. Crepsley answered.

**A/N: Review, review, review, please! Cassie will be in the next chapter, so do not fret. Sorry if it wasn't the best. I'm kind of fighting a writers block, but don't worry, it will be better the next chapter. More reviews, faster updates ;)**


	15. The Growl

**A/N: Hi Guys! I am so sorry for the late update, it never takes me this long to update! I'm enjoying my last week of summer, so I haven't had a lot of time to get on here! But heres your chapter, and I promise the updates will come as quick as they used to when my school starts again. Make sure to review! :)**

_**Thank you to my awesome reviewers! You guys mean a lot! BlueMoon1334, Blu-3y3s, MissXMagic, Sakura, Stefffles and InkShaper, and shout out to Slytherin Queen 1.30**_

_Listening to: Your Love- Nicki Minaj_

I uncovered my nose and mouth and looked around the cavern, there was crimson painted all over the walls of the dark cavern.

"It smells terrible!" Darren said letting out a cough, I looked over and nodded at him in agreement.

"That is because it is the blood of a Vampaneze, it is not supposed to be appetizing." Mr. Crepsley snorted, "But we can not rest here."

"Well, no duh Mr. C." I said, Gavner just looked at me surprised that I let out that comment. "S-s-sorry. I could have sworn I said that in my head." I said with a small grin. Mr. Crepsley just ignored it and we started to continue our journey to the mountain. The wind was cold and harsh and the wind whipped our faces without any mercy. I couldn't really feel my feet anymore, because it had gotten to the point where they were numb from treading in the snow. The only warmth would be from Darren's glance or when he would take my hand in his. We reached a large briar patch, to my surprise, the two older vampire's started stripping of their clothes. It never hit me before, but I was the only girl among everyone.

"What are you guys doing?" Darren said, knocking me out of my train of thought.

"If we go through here, our clothes will be torn to shreds. Rather get our skin a little knicked up, then have nothing to wear for the rest of the trip." Gavner replied, continuing to strip. We were all shocked when he revealed to have boxers with little pink elephants on them. Mr. Crepsley let out a large laugh, something that wasn't very regular for the vampire.

"Nice undies, Gavner." I commented with a giggle.

"They were a gift!" He shrugged, "She was such a beautiful woman, just a terrible taste in underwear."

"And boyfriends." Darren joked. I poked him in the side, and he just laughed and shot me a grin. I had finally realized why Truska had given me a pair of boy-short styled underwear, instead of my usual. I stripped out of my clothes and blushed a little, looking down at my body. I had lost more weight, and my figure was very slender. My skin was still sun-kissed which surprised me, most vampires were very ghostly in their skin tones. There were still scars on my abs, from Murlough going stab-happy with his dagger. I looked over at the little people, their eyes were wide and green and made me feel really, really unconfortable. We made out way through the briar patch, getting cut by the occasional thorn, the coppery liquid spilling out of our wounds. When we finally made it out, there was a rest-station right in our view. We got dressed again, and made our way to the opening.

"We're clear! No blood here!" I said peeking my head into the opening, my blonde hair falling to the side.

"Good, now you and Darren go and grab some wood so we can start a fire." Mr. Crepsley ordered, "Gavner and I need to discuss some issues." We didn't argue as we made out way back out into the snow.

"We just get here, and they get to relax while we go searching for wood." Darren huffed, I nodded my head in agreement.

"Even the little people stayed behind!" I said reffering to the travelers that stuck to our sides.

"But, we are alone." Darren said, a smirk growing on his lips. I looked around jokingly.

"Yes, that we are, Mr. Shan." I said getting close to him and placing a light kiss on his lips, I heard him take in a small, quick intake of air. I giggled intertwining my fingers with his. My heart jumped just like it did every time I was near him. Nothing made me happier than Darren did. We continued to kiss, but each froze as we heard a deep growl come from behind us. _Grrrrr..._

Cassie shuffled through her belongings in the tent. Since Ronnie left, she was able to take her tent and not have to share anymore, she was pretty glad for that. But she was sad that her friend was gone, at least she still had Evra. She had grown extremely fond of the snake boy. He made her feel perfectly safe, which was something that was hard to do since her parents and the fire. She was laying out her outfit choices on the floor, deciding which looked best and what she wanted to wear next.

"Ronnie?" A deep voice said from behind her. Whoever was there obviously didn't know that Ronnie had left. Cassie turned around and saw a boy standing there peering in the tent, he was tall and had slender muscles on his arms, and silver hair. He made Cassie feel uneasy, but she ignored her gut feeling.

"Uhm, Ronnie left for a while I think. I'm not sure when she'll be back, sorry?" Cassie said, she wasn't too fond of strangers, especially ones that had a look in their eyes like this boy had. So she wasn't going to be very welcoming. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, waiting for the boy to respond.  
"Who are you?" She asked, this came out a lot more harshly than she intended it to, but the boy didn't seem to notice. He placed one of his hands in his pockets and smiled a devious grin.  
"My name is Steve Leonard."

_Oh Shit._

**A/N: Oh! Cliff Hanger! Sorry guys! I'm keeping Cassie in my story for the time being, I just couldn't seem to let her go, and she's very good for my story line! So please review, and then maybe I will put the next chapter up sooner than I intended! **


	16. Screw Destiny

**A/N: Hello my readers! So today is the day before I start school tomorrow, wah. But the good news is that updates will be coming at a more steady pace! Music is a very important part of my writing, so I kind of gave 'theme songs' to the characters and their relationships. Of course, Ronnie's song to Darren and kind of the theme song of the whole story is 'Mine' By Taylor Swift.**

**Darren's song to Ronnie is 'Be My Escape' by Relient K(I think this song is perfect for this). Do you have any songs that would be a theme song for a character or for their relationships? Tell me in reviews! :) **

_**Thanks to my reviewers MissXMagic, BlueMoon1334 and BeautifulXMagicFAN... need more reviews! Please! :) **_

**Disclaimer: I only own Ronnie, and MissXMagic owns Cassie.**

_Listening to: Ocean Avenue; Yellowcard_

I slowly turned around, my heart dropped to my feet. I was looking right into the glaring eyes of a large wolf. It's lips were pulled back into a snarl, and it had a steady growl as it padded slowly towards us. It leaned back onto it hind legs, and I closed my eyes tightly as it lunged towards Darren, it opened it's large fierce jaws and started... wait.

What was it doing? The wolf had knocked Darren off of his feet and was leaning on top of him, whining softly and licking his chin. Darren laughed softly and I let out a huge sigh of relief, my mouth was dropped and I was looking over the situation, not believing what had happened.

"I see you have met some of our cousins." Mr. Crepsley said coming behind us with a grin.

"Cousins?" I choked out, my voice was raspy from the shock. I thought Darren was going to be mauled!

"Wolves and vampires are related." Mr. Crepsley explained, telling us that we were once the same, well thats how the legend went. The orange haired vampire went close to the wolf and squatted down, examining the specimen.

"I'm going to call him Streak, because he has a streak of black hair on his belly." Darren said looking at me with a boyish grin, I returned a warm smile.

"Wolves don't need names, he is not a dog." Mr. Crepsley snorted. Gavner frowned,

"If he wants to name him, then let it be. There's no harm." he said. As we spoke a pack came out from the outskirts of the icy woods. My attention was caught to a small cub, which came close to me and yapped at my feet. I leaned down and picked him up, holding him delicately in my arms.

"Oh my GOD! This is the cutest little thing I've ever seen!" I squealed girlishly. They all looked at me with wide eyes.

"Sorry." I said under my breath laughing. We had gone on to call the cub Rudi, due to his red nose. The wolves went along with us up to Vampire Mountain because there apparently were very good leftovers after the Vampire Council. They also went to go meet old friends and find new mates. Darren wondered if we could communicate with them through our thoughts like he could and many other vampires could with spiders, but unfortunately we could not. It was pretty cool to run with the wolves, since I had become a vampire my favorite thing to do was run. I loved being quick and agile, being able to see my surroundings pass by me in a blur, and able to run nimbly over things that would trip a normal human. When we finally reached the first rest stop, I was exhausted. I laid next to Darren, the wolves surrounding us.

"This is weird, I never in a million years think we would be here." Darren said, looking into my eyes. I laid my head on my forearm and looked at him.

"In a cave with two vampires, or surrounded by a pack of wolves?" I started, "Or both?"

"Both. But that's not my point. I would never think that we would both actually BE vampires, if you would have told me this a year or two ago, I would have thought it was a joke." Darren said scooting over closer to me, so that our bodies were touching. I smiled and leaned forward kissing him on the lips,

"I'm just happy that you're here with me. I don't know what I'd do without you. You're my life now. I love you more than anything I've ever loved before." he breathed honestly. Tears clouded half of my vision, he struck a chord deep in my heart, and I knew that I loved him just as much. I kissed him softly again, this time running my hands through his hair.

We kissed for a couple more minutes, we had never gone any further than kissing, this was one, probably because we were always too tired and would pass out after a couple minutes of kissing. And two, Mr. Crepsley was like a nosy father. I pulled back, resting my forehead on his and looking deep into his beautiful eyes.

"I love you too." I answered simply. I leaned my head into his chest, the wolves around us making us super warm, I was the warmest I've ever been since on our way to vampire mountain. Darren fell into sleep before I did, I thought about Cassie. I wondered how she was, I wondered how her and Evra were doing, I wanted them to be together. I missed her a lot. I fell into a deep sleep, not knowing that I would have the most eventful, weird dream of my life.

Cassie eyed Steve, she stopped the urge to walk around and check him over. She knew he was a Vampaneze but she wasn't a least bit afraid, even though deep down she knew that she should be. Steve snorted and began to speak,

"So I guess Ronnie told you?"

Cassie looked at him down her nose, she was never rude like this before, unless someone threatened her friends or the Cirque.

"Yeah, she told me enough." She said keeping her short.

"Well, you should tell me where she is." Steve said prodding for information. Cassie let out a small laugh, as if! Was this kid delusional? He barged into her tent, and then asked and expected her to tell him where Ronnie was? Definitely not.

"Like I would tell you." She mumbled, but Steve heard her. He was quickly infront of her, but Cassie didn't even flinch, instead she cooly ran her hands through her hair and pushed it behind her shoulders.

"Well, if you were smart, you would tell me. You might be a fan of Shan, but Ronnie isn't DESTINED to be with him. She's DESTINED to be with me. And I want her." Steve growled.

Cassie blinked. Destined? She had never seen two people more in love than Ronnie and Darren, there was no way that she was _destined_ to be with a monster like this kid. What was with this whole destiny thing? First Ronnie had a so called destiny of being a big super killer and then now this? It angered Cassie that someone was going around telling Ronnie what she was, and what she wasnt.

"Screw Destiny." Cassie growled in his face.

"Cass?" Evra called from outside of her tent, he was coming closer. Cassie blinked and once her eyes opened again, Steve was gone. She let out a sigh of relief, this was complicated. She had started to develop a head ache from all of this. Evra entered the tent and immediately saw that something had happened.

"Whats wrong?" He asked coming closer and hugging Cassie. They had been together for at least a month or so now, and Cassie couldn't be happier. But she had to tell Ronnie about her encounter with Steve. But there was no way.

"Nothing." She smiled, and lied. Evra smiled and kissed her, and Cassie silently thanked Ronnie in her head.

**A/N: Not my best chapter, but I hope you like it! Make sure to REVIEW! Please! Please! Please! I'm begging you! Haha. See you next time! **


	17. Dreaming

**A/N: Guys! I am SO sorry! I got really sick, and couldn't even LOOK at my computer, to hell with trying to write another installment! But I got back as fast as I could! Please forgive me? Here is the next chapter! Make sure to review! Please, please! If you do, I'll return the favor, if you don't have a fic, I'll still return the favor... somehow! **

_**Thank you to my awesome reviewer! BlueMoon1334, where did the rest of you guys go? Come back! **_

**Disclaimer: Darren Shan? Darren Shan? Nope. That's not me! But I do own Ronnie, and MissXMagic owns Cassie!**

_Listening To: "Please Don't Go" Mike Posner_

_It was dark, the cold wind from the mountain wasn't apparent. But every time I let out a huff of air it appeared in a small puff of smoke and then evaporated away. I looked around, there wasn't anything around me, and I couldn't walk. I didn't have the desire to go anywhere, my gut was telling to stay right here and wait. I blinked slowly as I saw a familiar figure come into my view. My heart jumped with joy when I saw Cassie come into my view. Dressed awesome, as always, her brown hair was pulled up and her face wasn't the usual grin that I had grown accustomed to. Her face was pale, and her lips were pressed into a straight line, my stomach dropped._

"_Ronnie?" Cassie called, probably unsure if I was there or not. This was one weird dream. _

"_Cass! I'm right here!" I said pushing myself from where I was, and grabbing onto her tightly, she returned my embrace weakly. _

"_What's going on?" I said recollecting myself instantly, and pushing my brows together with deep _

_concern. _

"_God, I really hope I'm not just dreaming and saying this for my health." Cassie huffed under her breath._

"_Well, I'm dreaming. Are you?" I said, my mind starting to race around._

"_Yeah, wait. Am I like, IN your dream?" Cassie said, her face turning from her grim expression to shock. _

"_I think so! I mean, I'm a half vampire, this wouldn't be the strangest thing that's ever happened to us." _

"_Cool!" We both gasped at the same time._

"_But really, what's wrong?" I said, stepping back from her. I hope my head wasn't just playing tricks on me._

"_I was in my tent, minding my own business, and then Steve came." she said, her last few words came down on me like a ton of bricks. _

"_What do you mean Steve came?" I said, my voice raising. I was accustomed to flying off the handle, I had a bad temper and everyone around me knew it. I would get in trouble at school a lot for flipping out at the teachers when they would say something wrong. "I swear to god, if he starts messing with you, and the Cirque, I will go INSANE!" I growled. Cassie just took a deep breath, she knew to just let me explode and then sizzle back down._

"_He didn't mess with any of us." Cassie replied, I let out a sigh of relief.  
"Well, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't let him mess with you anyways" I said forcing a grin, it still worried me, because she couldn't defend herself from him, most of the people at the cirque couldn't. I'm not even sure if I could if I had to._

"_I'm positive that he's gone." Cassie smiled weakly. _

"_Well then good! Away from the Cirque and off to god knows where!" _

"_He's looking for you." Really? Great. _

"_Why?" I said looking down at my feet, keeping my eyes locked on the floor._

"Veronica, Veronica!" I heard Darren slowly shaking me awake, calling my name, imitating my mother.

"_Not now Darren." I groaned. Cassie started to speed up her pace,  
"He said that you were destined to be with him, and he wants you. Be careful Ronnie!"_

"_What a psychopath!" I snorted "You be careful too, take care of everyone for me, and yourself."_

My eyes snapped open, I saw Darren leaning over me, the dim light from the moon shining into the cave. The various wolves were walking around the cave, and Gavner and Mr. Crepsley were looking at me impatiently, ready to continue our trek to the mountain. I groaned and rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands, sitting up slowly.

"Good morning." Darren said smiling, placing a kiss on my lip before standing up and bringing me with him, using his momentum to lift me his hands a tight grip on my wrist.

"Good morning" I said leaning onto my toes and returning his kiss.

"Let's go! We don't have all night, teenage lovers!" Gavner cooed from the back corner.

"There are only a couple days left until we reach the mountain, so we are on what you humans would like to say the home stretch." Mr. Crepsley said, scratching the side of his face, where his scar happened to be.

"Alright, I'm ready! I'm up! Lets go!" I huffed, turning on my heel and walking towards the mouth of the cave, all the thoughts whizzing through my head.

**A/N: Sorry that this was such a terrible chapter, I hated it. But maybe you guys will like it! I didn't really have a lot of time to write it, and I'm distracted by my parents downstairs on the couch, not my normal writing atmosphere! But another chapter will be up soon, and it will be better and longer! But you guys deserved an update, so here one is! **


	18. Damn Nature

**A/N: Hello Lovies! So here is another update! A lot faster than the last one, yes I know, I know! I hope you guys aren't made at me and are on a 'no-review' streak! That would be terrible! Wow! I'm at 49 reviews! That is awesome! Please, please review! It really gives me the boost to update quicker, it doesn't have to be anything deep, just something that lets me know that you're reading and enjoying it!**

_**Thank you to RoxyPony for all the amazing reviews! After this chapter, I'm going to start individually start replying to your reviews in the beginning of the story! So you want to be here? Then review! **_

**Disclaimer: Sigh, I feel like I could do this in my sleep. I don't own anything but Ronnie, Cassie belongs to the wonderful MissXMagic, who needs to COME BACK! **

_Listening To: "Paint It Black" Rolling Stones and "Changes: Tupac_

We did our usual routine of making our way to the mountain, I remembered that I haven't looked in a mirror since we left the Cirque. I could only imagine how I looked, that would have to be one of the things that I was going to need to do when I get to the Mountain. I looked down at my clothes, which had turned mostly into strips of clothing that were ripped and tattered over my newly, muscular body. I was never really active in my human life, sports weren't my thing. I tried over and over again but there was nothing that I could excel at, so I was one of those people who would try something for a week and then quit. I used to feel like my skull was a ball magnet, and I was super clumsy. My legs used to always be covered in bruises from falling down- and up the stairs. I looked at my fingernails, which grew increasingly in size. My hair went past my butt now, but I let it flow freely, I loved having long hair, but it was a little too long. I would often cut my bangs rougly with a dagger everytime they would get too long. But I would need a haircut when I reached the mountain, hopefully someone could do as good of a job as Truska had. My arms were sore from an earlier climb, I was being kind of difficult, due to my fear of heights.

"I can't do it." I breathed simply, looking up and the large wall of rock.

"Give me a break, Ronnie," Mr. Crepsley spat "You have more abilities than you could ever dream of, scaling up a little wall is the least of your concerns."

"Imafrudhgtss..." I mumbled.

"What?" Mr. Crepsley said, narrowing his eyes and leaning his ear towards me, "I have excellent hearing, but with you mumbling like that, no decent creature could understand what you're saying."

"I'm-"

"She's afraid of heights." Darren finished for me, I looked over and he gave me a small smile.

"Oh don't worry!" Gavner said coming over and putting a firm hand on my shoulders, "If you were to fall, it's only a fifty percent chance that you would plummet to your death, you could get lucky and land on one of those rock ledges." My eyes grew in size, I started breathing heavily, was that supposed to make me feel better? No. It didn't, that was probably the worst pep talk I have ever heard. Darren came behind me and placed his hands on my hips. 

"I'll climb behind you, and god forbid if anything were to happen... I'd never let you fall." he said, I could hear the sincerity in his voice. I nodded my head and started to climb up after Mr. Crepsley and Gavner, Darren once again behind me just incase anything were to happen to me, what would I do without this boy? Probably not be a vampire climbing up to attend a vampire council, but that's besides the point. The trek wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, we didn't have a lot to carry other than the collapsable pots and pans, and Madame Octa. I could see the frustration in Darren's face when Mr. Crepsley said that she would be making the journey with us. Darren truly despised that spider, he blamed her for robbing him of his humanity. But she was a very rare specimen, and Mr. Crepsley wished to show her to someone. The sun started to come up in the horizon and we finally made it to our final rest stop before reaching the mountain. It kind of surprised me how the wolves adapted to our time schedule, sleeping mostly during the days and traveling with us by night. Darren loved Rudi, the pup would always nip at his legs and yap wildly whenever Darren would focus his attention away from the pup.

Darren and I laid on the floor of the cave, but Rudi placed his nose in the small of Darren's back, the sun was up and it was eager to go out and have some time playing outside. Like a tired father, Darren groaned and unwrapped his arms from around me and spoke into my hair.

"I'm going to go play with Rudi outside."

"Alright, I'll come with you. I can't sleep anyways." I said standing up and patting the pup on it's head, his tongue hanging out of the side of his jaws. I almost had forgotten how the world looked in the daylight, I stretched my back, arms above my head, the bones cracking quietly. I looked around at the snow covered forest, Rudi loved being away from the adult wolves, he had no one to snap at him whenever he was too far away and was able to explore freely. Darren and I would laugh when the pup would try and climb the taller trees, always struggling up halfway before sliding down and glaring at the trunk in defeat. Rudi found a smaller branch and shimmed his way up the trunk, finally making it to the top, once he got up there he looked down at Darren and whimpered.

"Come on," Darren laughed ruffling his hair with one of his hands, "You're not _that_ high up. You don't need to be afraid."

Rudi continued to whimper, each whine higher pitched than the next. I took a step closer, but then he glared his fangs and glared.

"Woah, what did I do?" I said, laughing quietly, even though there was no humor present in my voice. But he continued to growl even when I had returned to the spot where I was standing

"Ok, Rudi, I'm coming to get" Darren started, but then he was over powered by a shaking roar from behind us. We slowly turned around and saw the huge, night colored bear standing over a snow drift, it shook it's snout and large cranium, the loose fur shaking along with it. It's eyes were dark and set on tearing us into pieces. Damn you nature, this is why I never went camping.

Cassie shot up in her bed, breathing heavily. Her forehead glistened with sweat when she walked over to her mirror and looked into it, running her fingers over the small morning bags under her eyes she sighed. She really hoped that it wasn't just some strange dream, and she was really able to communicate with her.

"Cassandra," Mr. Tall called from the entrance of her tent.

"Hello Mr. Tall" Cassie greeted, trying her best to be as respectful as she could.

"Did you have a strange dream last night?" He asked on cue, Cassie licked her lips, still dry from her slumber the night before, she must have slept with her mouth open. She nodded her head, and raised a brow questioningly.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" She asked. Mr. Tall smiled mysteriously, pressing his fingertips together as his often did when he would think, or begin to speak.

"I am one of many talent's Cassandra," he started, Cassie fought the urge to tell him to call her Cassie, she hated when her full name was used. The only people that would really use it would be her drunk parents when they would cry out at her in false anger. "I know what is going on, for the most part. And you and Veronica", there he went calling people by their full names again. "Have a very strong connection. You are able to communicate to each other through your dreams, and probably more than that. But when the opportunity presents itself, you two will be able to discover this." he informed her. She sighed with relief, "So as you humans would say, you are not completely 'Coo- Coo Crazy'". Cassie let out a burst of laughter.

"Sorry Mr. Tall, but I don't really know any humans that say that. I think I heard my Uncle say it once, though." Cassie said, still giggling.

"Oh, I heard it once before," Mr. Tall said, a smiled played across his lips. "You are human, but you have gifts Cassandra. Perhaps you and Veronica were companions in a past life. But it isn't rare that when Vampire's bond with humans that they are able to communicate through slumber. But I wouldn't suggest doing it often. You never know who, or _what_ is listening." Mr. Tall warned, a shiver went through Cassie's spine. She nodded her head in understanding.

"Hey Cass! Let's go, you must be starving! Mr. Tall didn't hesitate to give us a ton of work, you know I never really see him doing anything around he-" Evra rambled as he walked into his girlfriend's tent, looking through the schedule that he had received from Cormac when he had awoken in the morning. He took a large gulp when he walked in and saw Mr. Tall inhabiting the tent.

"Uhm, Hi?" Evra said cheese-ily, with a childish wave of his hand. Cassie rolled her eyes and smirked, oh Evra.


	19. Adrenaline

**A/N: Alright, so heres the next chapter! I got more reviews than I did last time! But not enough, it's terrible when you're writing and have no reviews :( so please make me happy and REVIEW! Please!**

_**Ferretgirlsz: Yes, Ronnie is starting to understand it all! :)**_

_**Darren-Shan-Fan-012345678910: Thank you for the reviews, you wanted more, and here it is!**_

_**RoxyPony: Of course! Thank you for linking my story! I need as many people reading as I can get!**_

_**Listening to: don't kill me... "These Four Walls" Miley Cyrus **_

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, but Ronnie. That's it. No Cassie _this_ chapter, but she'll be back the next one, don't worry!

"Son of a bitch." I cursed under my breath, the bear looked at Darren, and then back at me. As if it was deciding who he wanted to eat first. It rose to it's back two feet, letting out a blood curdling roar, and then was back on all fours, and headed straight towards Darren. My thoughts ran quickly through my head, and I picked up a rock, and hurled it towards the skull of the bear. At the same time, Rudi jumped from the tree, landing on the large cranium of the bear, momentarily confusing it, before shaking the pup off and sending it hurling into a patch of brush. The cub had bought Darren enough time to get far enough ahead away from the bear. But that left me standing there, dumb struck. I growled under my breath,

"Great, this should be interesting." I said as it started to run at full speed towards me, I took advantage of my newly harnessed strength and jumped as high as I could into the air, making sure I timed it just right, sending the bear head first into the stump of the tree that Rudi was now free from. I laughed to myself as the bear shook its head in anger and let out another roar. Darren was back now, carrying a large rock and thick stick that he must have picked up from the ground. Rudi had climbed his way back up the same tree, yapping wildly.

"Come on, Grizzy." Darren growled, inviting the bear to attack. "Get Rudi!" he ordered me, with indirect harshness in his voice. I nodded and made my way up to the top of the tree, being careful to try and find a branch that could support my weight.

"Rudi! Come here! Rudi!" I hissed, reaching my hand out trying to get the pup to come, but it was shocked in fear, and couldn't move. The bear was swiping at Darren, and my heart would drop every time the bear was close to making a fatal blow. The grizzly was now ontop of Darren, trying to to crush him with the weight of his body. I cried out, screaming his name, which made the bear turn his attention to me, giving Darren time to avoid it once again. The other wolves were now arriving, probably because they heard Rudi's panicked cries. They leaped at the grizzly, tearing at it's fur and ears. Finally I swiped Rudi from the tree, the branch cracking beneath us, sending my body hurling towards the ground. I held Rudi close to my chest, rolling as I hit the ground. I winced as I felt my back collide with the cold ground, but it didn't hurt enough to keep me out of the 'action.' I looked over and saw Darren now exactly where the bear had wanted him, leaned up against a wall, he prodded it with a stick, but the bear was unfazed. Tears started to cloud my vision, I was too far away to help him, from the tumble from the tree. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, when I saw a small grey blur fly towards the bear. One of the little people knocked into the bear, knocking off it's equilibrium. The little person raised it's arms and tried to shove the beat, but the bear came crashing down, there was a loud _CRUNCH_, and there were the remains of the little person, bones straggling out from red wounds. I quickly ran over, trying to get to where the bear and Darren was as quickly as possible, my head was beating in my ears, and ringing in my head. The second little person came and... head butted the bear as it advanced towards Darren! But the little person, which we had named Lefty, was now staring at the bear deep in the eyes, either unafraid on unaware of the harm that was going to come it's way. I finally made my way over to the bear, I lunged, and connected my foot to the center of the bear, catching it off guard and making it stumble a little. Darren grabbed a handful of snow, throwing it into the eyes of the beast, blinding it once again. It growled and ran towards me, knocking me to the side with it's massive skull and sending me hurdling once again to the side, my bones cracking as they collided with the wall of rock. I blacked out for a second, next thing I knew when I came to, Darren was laying on top of the newly deceased bear, shaking and crying. I ran over and swooped him into my arms, kissing his forehead.

"It's alright." I said trying to calm him even though I realized I was now crying myself, the whole thing was so intense and left me emotionally drained. He tried to force a smile, wiping his tears with the back of one of his sleeves- one of my typical moves- trying to hide his tears from me. I smiled and he ran his fingers under my eyes, wiping away the stray tears. He leaned forward and lightly kissed me on the lips, something that at one point I thought I would never be able to experience again.  
"I love you." I assured him, he smiled and kissed me once again,

"I love you more." he answered sweetly. I stood up and looked at the bear, kicking it with the tip of the boot, my hands on my hips.

"What the hell was wrong with it!" I asked, looking at the bear, last time I checked they were never that hostile.

"I don't know," Darren answered, standing up and putting his hand into mine, holding onto it as tightly as he could. "But Lefty saved my life." he said walking over to the little person and crouching down.

"Thank you." he said to the little person, who nodded his head, "That was a close one, Lefty." he said smirking a half smile. The little person licked his lips, with it's pale grey-toned tongue and in a broken voice, surprised Darren and I by saying,

"Name... not... Lefty. Name... Harkat... Harkat... Mulds." it struggled, when it finished it's sentence, it pulled it's lips back into a jagged toothed grin.

"Holy Shit." Darren and I breathed at the same time, not taking our eyes off of the little person, who stood there still grinning.

**A/N: Ah, that felt like I took three years to write that! Thank god I had the book next to me, or else I would have forgotten a lot of that section. Well, REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! IF YOU REVIEW, I'LL GIVE YOU PERSONAL LITTLE PEOPLE TO DO YOUR LAUNDRY 3**


	20. Life or Death

**A/N: So here is another chapter! I hope I didn't make you all wait too long! I'm also going to be going back and editing earlier chapters, removing all the spelling mistakes and fixing things. Not a long AN today, so I'll let you get onto it.**

_**Thank you to my beautiful reviewers! Which I'm SO happy I have! Thank you for the sudden spur of so many reviews!**_

**Darren-Shan-Fan012345678910:**_** You wanted more, and here it is! Enjoy!**_

**:**_** Thank you! Here is the rest, so that you don't have to go to the hospital, I do NOT want to pay for your hospital bills.**_

**RoxyPony:****_Thank you sister! I wanted to make sure everyone saw every angle of the situation and didn't miss a thing!_**

**Ellie Ranesburg66:**_** I'm so glad that you are enjoying it! I hope you can continue to be inspired!**_

**MISSxMAGIC: ****_It's awesome that your computer is fixed! Cannot wait for your updates, and for you to read mine!_**

**Amela333:**_** Thank you for the reviews! I'm glad people like Ronnie, I didn't want her to be mary-sue, so I based her off myself. Which is the farthest from mary-sue you can get! **_

_Listening to: "Pearl" Katy Perry and "My Band" D-12_

_**Disclaimer: I only own Ronnie, and MissXMagic owns Cassie. **_

Cassie was sitting at one of the many tables around the Cirque, Rhamus barbequing filled the sky with smoke every time he flipped whatever was sizzling on it's surface. Cassie sighed as she looked at the smoke rising from the flames, remembering how her house had turned from a dysfunctional, prison, to a bunch of sparks and fireflies eating away at the frame. Deep in thought, Evra had the opportunity to come behind her and slide to the side, joining her on the bench. She jumped a little, too deep in thought to see Evra slither his way next to her. His lips parted in a grin as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Cassie smiled and placed her hands around his cheeks and kissed him lightly on his lips.

"Hi," she giggled as Evra leaned back his eyes still closed. Her flicked them open exposing his dark retinas.

"Whats wrong?" he asked, reading her facial expression.

"Nothing." Cassie answered simply, sighing the words off her tongue.

"Something is definitely wrong, you know you can tell me?" Evra prodded, lifting Cassie's chin.

"I was just thinking. I'm kind of shaken up, and I'm worried for Ronnie." Cassie spilled, rubbing her temples with her forefingers.

"Ronnie will be fine, she can handle herself, I'm sure of that. And I don't think Darren would let anything happen to her." Evra assured her, Cassie forced a half smile, trying to give Evra the idea that she actually believed him.

"I just have a really bad feeling, thats it. I don't know what's wrong. I just hope that..." Cassie trailed off, getting up and pulling Evra's hand with her.

"Hope that what?" he asked, concern shining in his eyes.

"That she doesn't forget who she is." Cassie answered.

It had turned out that the bear wasn't overly hungry, or infected with rabies, it had drank from a dead vampaneze that was buried around the areas. Every time I would look over at Darren, I could see he was still distracted by the occurrence that had happened earlier.

"Little people, can talk?" Gavner said starting down at Harkat, wide eyed, who to me, seemed to be enjoying this new found attention.

"I have never thought in all of my days, a little person would speak. But if you do not mind me asking, Harkat... that is your name, correct?" Mr. Crepsley asked, pacing around the little person. Harkat nodded, and once again in broken english, answered.

"Yes it...is."

"Well, Harkat, if you could speak all this time, why haven't you said anything before?" Mr. Crepsley inquired, scratching the side of his face, his brow furrowed in the center, deep in thought.

"I never... had... anything to...say. But I have... a message... from Mr. Tiny... so I decided... I better start... now." Harkat answered. I looked over at Darren, who was now wide eyed. I could already see the gears turning in his head.

"_A message?_" I asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

"It is for... the Princes... I do not think... I should... tell you." Harkat answered.

"Come on Harkat," Darren urged, "We won't tell the princes that you told us. You can trust us."

"You will not...tell?" He asked, looking around the room.

"Cross my heart, my lips are sealed!" I said drawing an imaginary X across my chest and locking my lips up with an imaginary key. Harkat let out a small sigh, and then took in a quick breath.

"Mr. Tiny told me... the night of...the Vampaneze Lord... is at hand... that is all."

"What does that mean?" I asked, looking at Gavner and Mr. Crepsley, whose expressions which told me that the message was more important to them, than it was for me. They were too stunned to speak, and tell me and Darren what the message meant. Darren and I were sitting outside of the cave, we were now about a week away from the mountain, and questions were whizzing through our heads.

"I still don't get it, I've come up with about a hundred scenarios, and still can't pinpoint what Harkat's message means." I said laying my fists on my knees.

"I don't know but Vampaneze Lord doesn't sound very fun to me." Darren answered, turning his head to look over at me, his brown hair brushing over his eyelashes.

"Maybe, there's like, this huge purple beast, and he's going to rise from hell or something." I said, my eyes opening wide.

"You've watched way too much TV." Darren laughed, his 100 watt smile, lighting me up inside.

"Hey! It could happen." I chuckled, "I just wish they would tell us so we could know." Darren nodded leaning over and pressing his forehead against mine.

"Well, there is no use stressing over it now, when we have no idea what it is, and I'm sorry, but your philosophies aren't very good." he said, his eyes staring into mine. I shivered as his warm breath played on my lips. I closed my eyes and laid my hands on the back of his neck, stretching my neck forward to kiss him. He filled his lungs with air, and pressed against me. When I pulled back, I could see he was still smiling, and a small giggle escaped my throat.  
"What?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing, nothing at all." I said, as he lifted his hands. I placed mine against his and let our fingers intertwine. He continued to stare at me, with a 'come on, you expect me to just not let you tell me?' look.

"It's just ironic, that my life is like a chapter from a Steven King book, and I'm the happiest I've ever been." I smirked.

"I knew it," Darren began, "Your so happy that there might be a gargantuan purple beast coming from the pits of hell." he said sarcastically, adding a overly dramatic sigh at the end.

"Yup, that's it." I answered, keeping my tone flat.

"Oh, uh." Darren grunted, being taken off guard.

"No, that's not it at all, and if you can't figure it out, I'm worried about you Darren Shan." I grinned, leaning forward and kissing him once again, this time when I tried to pull back, he placed his hands on my cheeks, leaning in even closer. I let out a muffled giggle and continued to kiss him. He pressed against me, his hands sliding down my sides and onto my hips. I leaned forward from my sitting position, biting at his lower lip, he pulled back, still close and breathing heavily.

"I never though I'd find someone like, you." he breathed, in between kisses. "I'm so glad I did." he finished, I pressed my eyes together tightly, wrapping my arms around him. I parted my lips, his tongue sliding over the entrance. I leaned in deeper, his scent filling up around me. As I leaned against his chest, I could feel his heart quickly beating. I felt even better, knowing that it wasn't just my heart that raced whenever I would kiss him. It was the same feeling that was there the first time we had kissed, and it never had changed. After a couple of minutes, we both pulled back. And just looked at each other, I took note of his face. His eyes dark, and full of dimension, his lips were perfectly shaped. I couldn't help but tear up, my heart felt as though it would beat out of my rib cage, and right into his lap. His arms still around me, I leaned closer into him, his chest stopping me from getting any closer. I felt his arms flex, as he wrapped his arms more around me, and I had moved my way into his lap, without even knowing. I placed my hand in the nook of his neck, the tears still at home in my vision.  
"What's wrong?" He asked, I just shook my head. I was never a sap like this, and refused to cry more than once or twice in a span of months. And with that whole bear accident and the events that had led up to my vampirism, and being where I was now, I probably had filled my crying quota for the rest of my life.

"Please don't ever leave me."

"I would die without you."

*****YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A USER TO REVIEW, SO COME ON, DO IT! :) *****


	21. Arrival and Departure

**A/N: So here's your next chapter. I'm going to have an appearance in this chapter from Slytherin Queen 1.0's character Esther Hill. Also, to be joining MissXMagic's character Cassie in the story, will be Kayden, the lovely OC of RoxyPony. So here goes nothing! The update is TWO DAYS before it was planned to be, thank you new ADHD medicine. **

A thank you to my _beautiful_ reviewers! Make sure to review, I know you're reading, so let's get to it!

_Amela333: Thank you for reading! You're all caught up, but you didn't have to wait too long for an update!_

_Darren-Shan-Fan-012345678910: Thank you! _

_RoxyPony: I just adore you're lengthy reviews. You're the greatest sister!_

_Equify: Thank you for reviewing! That's what I was getting at, trying to get people love their love. They're just too perfect together! You will see soon enough!_

_Blu-3y3s: Welcome back! You WERE missed!_

_And a shout-out to people who reviewed Chapter 19 even if they didn't review the last one ;)_

_ellieranesburg66, Darcy Chambers, and Ferretgirlsz. _

_And of course, the always awesome MissXMagic!_

Disclaimer: So here we go for the... twenty-first time. I only own Ronnie, that's all. 

_Listening To: "Please Don't Go" Mike Posner and "Shades" Lil Wayne_

"Why is it that I always see you two like this? Don't you ever just talk?" Gavner grinned, his hands on his hips. Darren's face flushed, and I doing the opposite, let out a nervous chuckle. It wasn't the best characteristic to have, bursting into giggles in an awkward, nervous or scary situation. But it was how I worked. Darren and I exchanged glances and got to our feet.

"No time so slow down, we're on the home stretch!" Gavner continued with childish excitement. Over the final course of the journey, information about Harkat's message leaked to the surface, mostly from Gavner. The Vampaneze Lord was going to rise and lead them into a war with the vampires. Our only hope? The stone of blood. As we were heading up the trail, Larten spotted a figure on the side of the trail, her black shaggy hair was on her shoulders, and she seemed to be sitting there taking a break. She leaned forward, yawning and taking a cat like stretch, her _ears _and _tail_ turning towards the floor? I looked to the side, puzzled. Darren leaned close and leaned in my ear,  
"What's next, a monkey girl?" he chuckled as we walked over to the figure. To our surprise Mr. Crepsley leaned over cautiously.  
"Esther?" he questioned, the girl looking causally over and then taking a double take.  
"Larten!" she squealed, jumping onto the vampire and wrapping her legs around his waist. I leaned over to Gavner, whose eyes were wide along with his mouth.

"I thought only vampires could go up to the mountain, I never thought there were... cat vampires? I thought cats hated us?" I said in a hushed tone, Gavner only shook his head and shrugged, still shocked at the affection shown for Mr. Crepsley.

She retreated from her grip, and stood towards us, tail swishing back and forth like a pendulum, her ears twitching slightly every time a gust of wind would come by. She grinned and held out a hand, which surprised me, imagining it would be a paw, or something.  
"Hi, I'm Esther Hill." I took her hand into mine and gave it a firm shake.

"Ronnie Dexter." I answered, and then leaned over, sliding my arm around Darren's waist, "And this is Darren Shan." Darren gave his signature boyish grin and a nod.

"Excuse me if I come off as rude, but what're you doing here?" Mr. Crepsley said, fixing his cloak.

"Oh, well there's been some weird stuff going on around here, and normally, they wouldn't allow a non-vampire as you would know." she said, leaning up against the bark of a tree, "but I'm basically here to watch the trails for a little, to make sure nothing... fishy is going on." she finished, chuckling at the remark she had just made.  
"Fishy, cats like fish. I get it." I whispered to Darren who only rolled his eyes, "You can be such a dork, you know that right?" Turning my attention back to Esther, she continued.

"Even though the Cirque may be neutral, I'm not. I'm all for the vampires, so I'm going to help anyway I can."

"Very well, I would love to catch up Esther, really..." Mr. Crepsley said, putting on a sly grin. _Yuck_. I thought, shivering at the fact that my mentor was trying to put some moves on or something. "But we'd have to be on our way." After saying our goodbyes, we were on our way.

Finally, after seeming like endless weeks, we had made it to the mountain.

"So, where's the palace?" Darren asked with a response of Gavner and Mr. Crepsley bursting into side splitting laughter.

"That's a good one, Darren!" Gavner choked, but by the solid expression on Darren's face, they realized it wasn't a joke.

"No, seriously," I began, annoyed at the fact that our confusion was seemingly a joke, "Where is it?"

"Do you really think we would be in seclusion if we built a palace on the side of a mountain?" Mr. Crepsley answered, returning to his regular state after letting out one or two more stray chuckles.

"Oh!" I said snapping my fingers, "it's _inside_ the mountain!" Mr. Crepsley simply nodded. After going through a wrong route, we were finally led to the dimly lit entrance to the mountain. A large vampire stood at the gate, his face overshadowed by a large hood. His knuckled whitened as his grip on his spear tighened.

"I Larten Crepsley, come to seek council."

"I Gavner Purl, come to seek council."

"I Darren Shan, come to seek council."

"I... Harkat Mulds... come... seek council."

"I Ron-" Mr. Crepsley cleared his throat, jabbing me lightly in the ribs. I let out a huff of air, pushing my blade-trimmed bangs out of my eyes.

"I _Veronica_ Dexter, come to seek council." I finished, the guard spoke, his voice booming through the halls.

"Larten Crepsley, and Gavner Purl are recognized by the gate, but these three," he said, pointing his spear at us, "are not, do you vouch for them?"

"I do." Mr. Crepsley answered.

"Very well then, Veronica Dexter and Darren Shan are recognized by the gate, but what is this ugly little thing?" He said leaning forward to inspect Harkat.

"A little person." Mr. Crepsley answered, laughter shook the hall.

"A little person? What would a little person be doing at the Mountain?" the guard snorted.

"He has a message from Mr. Tiny." Mr. Crepsley answered smugly.

"Very well then, Harkat Mulds is recognized by the gate."

We entered the hall, the various places packed with vampires. Darren and I kept receiving strange looks, it was an oddity to be a child in the mountain. Many vampires looked me up and down, another oddity that a female was arriving. Darren reached for my hand, and I smiled, trying not to laugh. I kind of liked when he got jealous. We arrived at the Hall of Osca Velm, many of the halls were named after famous vampires. We finally sat down in the smoky hall. There were handwoven baskets full of shoes on the wall, that I would be visiting soon. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a vampire climb up and write our names on a list of who was attending council. As we sat, another vampire came around offering us a barrel of bread and an assortment of raw and cooked meat, which we eagerly accepted, then the vampire then returned with jugs filled with human blood, wine and water. It was difficult, because you had to drink right from the jug. I had some difficulty, spilling and drowning myself the first times I tried, but it was a little more entertaining than drinking out of a cup. The vampire finally returned with a deep, hot broth. I ripped off a piece of bread, dipping it I the broth.

"This is great." Darren mumbled through a full mouth, already on a third piece of bread.

"The best," Gavner agreed. I looked over at Mr. Crepsley who was picking at a piece of bread,  
"Why aren't you having some?" I asked, still eating.  
"Bat broth does not agree with me." He answered, I looked into my bowl and saw a small wing sticking out of it, I shrugged and continued to eat but Darren's eyes widened, his hand freezing on the way to his mouth.

"Bat broth?" he yelped.

"Of course, don't be silly, you loved it when you didn't know what it was!" Gavner chortled. Darren just pushed the bowl away, looking at me and shrugging. If it was good, I didn't care, I'd eat it. Another vampire came up, all decked out in red, just like Mr. Crepsley.

"What took you so long?" he said sharply.  
"SEBA!" Mr. Crepsley boomed, I widened my eyes, not used to seeing all these sides of Mr. Crepsley. He grinned from ear to ear, introducing us to the vampire. "This is my mentor, Seba. These are my assistants, Ronnie and Darren." he said, showing us off with a wave of his hand.

"Nice to meet you. You Larten, with assistants? And so very young... the princes are not going to approve." he trailed off, before snapping back, "I'm the quarter master here, I make sure everything runs smoothly, even when some abominations walk through those doors, I try my best to suit their needs." Seba joked.

"Darren, show him Octa." Mr. Crepsley demanded, his smile still plastered on his face. Darren reached over and pulled out the huge spider. Seba leaned forward, fascinated with the creature. He took the spider out of the cage, reassuring us that there wasn't a spider that he couldn't charm.  
"What a beauty." He cooed, the arachnid moving it's way up his arm.

"I would like you to have him." Mr. Crepsley said, his eyebrows raising.

"I'm flattered Larten, but I have too much business to attend too up here, you enjoy her, Young Shan. She is quite a gem." he said, Mr. Crepsley mumbled something inaudible and Darren tried his best to smile, even though he hated Octa.

"Now, let me show you to where you'll be staying. But stay close, these tunnels can be like a maze." he said showing us to rooms.

"Where are all the girls?" I asked, curious why I seemed to be the only one.

"Women are not usually fit to be vampires, and once they find out they are sterile they normally refuse the offer." Gavner answered.  
"Like, can't have children?" I choked out, I never thought of having children, but I thought one day that I would. And now that I knew I couldn't a little bit of sadness settled in my stomach. But I found no use stressing over what was already done, so I quickly pushed it away. Even though the subtle sickness was still in my stomach.  
"You didn't tell them?" Seba said to Mr. Crepsley, who shook his head, bitting at the inside of his cheek. The subject was pushed away when we arrived at a long row of halls.

"Would you like separate rooms?" Seba asked.

"You two will be sleeping seperate!" Mr. Crepsley said, pointing at me and Darren, I rolled my eyes when Gavner agreed.

"Ok Dad." I chuckled.

I had finally been at rest in my room, laying in the coffin. I had asked Seba for a bed, since I liked to stretch out when I slept and the coffin kept me in too tight of boundaries, but he had said he would get it for me tomorrow. I groaned when I realized I had to go to the bathroom, peeking out of my door I tried to locate the bathroom, after a couple of minutes of wandering around, I realized I was lost.

"Are you lost?" a feminine voice said from behind. I turned around to be face to face with another girl, finally. She was about the same size as me, her long strawberry blonde hair flowing down and resting on her shoulders. Her stormy blue eyes were framed with thick, dark eyelashes. I continued to look as I saw a long sword hanging off of her belt, slightly hidden under her raspberry colored cloak. I smiled when I saw a hot-pink hair-tie on her wrist.

"Uhm, well, yeah." I admitted, slightly embarassed. "I just need to go to the bathroom."  
"These tunnels are confusing, but you shouldn't be wandering around without any idea where you are. I haven't seen you, so you're probably new. So that was a pretty stupid idea." She snorted, walking away as she talked as a signal for me to follow her. I followed and use the water closet, afraid of the fact that I might fall in. When I excited, she was still leaning against a wall.

"I'm Kayden, I guess me and Arra aren't the only fems here anymore." She said with a smirk.

"Ronnie Dexter." I answered.

"Welcome to the Mountain," she said leading me back to my room, "I have a feeling that we might get along."

"I don't see why not. Just don't get me mad, I can be kind of a bitch. I don't really like annoying people either, so I hope there are none of them here." I said honestly. Kayden looked surprised, and then smiled.

"Oh yeah, we're definitely going to get along." She said, high-fiving me. I laughed, I was happy to have a friend here so quickly, after not having Cassie.

"But get some sleep, I'll meet with you in the morning. I'll give you a real tour, not the boring, droning never-ending one Seba gives, where he points out pointless things like _legendary cracks in the walls!" _she joked, giving me a wave and making her way to wherever she was coming from.

Cassie shivered, something wasn't right. She looked over at Evra who was also on edge. She looked down at her hands, which were shaking unreasonably.  
"Something isn't right, at all." Evra said, trying not to alarm Cassie but she didn't take to it too well.

"I don't know why I'm reacting like this- to something that hasn't even happened." She said shaking her head side to side.

"Well, we need to go check it out, of course." Evra smirked determinedly, leading her out of the tent. The snuck out of the Cirque, trying not to wake anyone up. Cassie stopped when she heard a crunch under her foot. She looked down to see a dark, red stained liquid over the white of bone.

"Oh my god." She breathed, turning to see the dispersed bodies that lay over the field, dead.

"What the hell?" Evra said, pulling Cassie close to him who started to breathe in and out sharply, pulling her head to his chest.

"Help... anyone?" A voice cried out from the massacre. Cassie pulled away and Evra followed, searching for the voice.

"Oh dear god, please help me." it pleaded, Cassie finally found the source of the voice.  
"Don't worry, we're here. We'll help you and get you to somewhere safe, what happened?" she said looking over the girl, her auburn hair was hard- dried with blood in patches. Deep wounds showing from the rips in her clothes.

"Vampaneze." she answered before letting her eyes close, fluttering soflty. Knowing that she was safe. Cassie looked desperately at Evra, anger in the pit of her heart.

"Let's get her back to the Cirque," she said trying to pick her up. She looked at Evra who was just standing there, "A little help here?"

"Oh yeah, sorry." he answered helping Cassie lift the girl and struggle to get her to the Cirque without hurting her.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing? Thats _my dinner!" _


	22. Match 22 WOW!

**A/N: Hello readers! I know that cliff-hanger really got you guys well... hanging. But I wanted to take the time now to say thank you to all the reviews, it's amazing! But please keep them coming! **

_Thank you to all my **beautiful **reviewers! And a thank you to everyone who subscribed or favorited this!_

RoxyPony: I'm so glad that you liked it! I thought that was pretty funny too, and I could totally see Kade saying that!

: You're too sweet! But I'm glad it is your favorite!

Blu-3y3s: Yeah, I liked that too, he doesn't want any fooling around! ;)

Amela333: I'm excited to have them at the Mountain too! I was pretty funny this chapter, if I have to say so myself!

Ellie Ranesburg66: Thank you! I'm pretty proud of that twist!

Slytherin Queen 1.30: Ahh, I know! I wanted it to be a surprise though! If I put her in again, I'll fix it! :)

Sapphiet: Yes, it definitely could! Thank you, I'll be using your luck for this!

_Thank you favoriters/subscribers: The Master Insaniac, StoleTheSpider_

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything, but Ronnie. The wonderful, magnificent MissXMagic owns Cassie, and the hardcore-rough n' tough RoxyPony owns Kayden.**

_**Listening to "Speak Now" by Taylor Swift.**_

Cassie's heart dropped, she exchanged glances with Evra,

"Why does this always happen to me?" he groaned, the poor snake-boy always seemed to be the interest to someone for dinner. They laid the girl, now unconscious on the ground, as delicately as they could. Cassie's breathing started to pick up as she could hear the growling of the unknown predator behind her. She gathered up all of her sanity and courage and turned around. The vampaneze stood hunched over, his chin, teeth and mouth were covered in the thick, red substance that was taken from the victims that now inhabited the ground. The lavender tint of his skin was able to be seen very clearly, even though they were surrounded in darkness and so was the dark, red scar on his left cheek. His breathing was deep, and his lips twitched up into a cynical smile.  
"What do we have here, a _snake-boy_ and a little girl?" he cooed, the tone of his voice aggravating, no one called her a little girl and got away with it.

"Listen buddy, I would really back off if I were you, if I wanted to, I could burn you to a crisp." Cassie lied, trying to make it seem as though she was one of the gifted people at the Cirque near by.

"Oh really? You're one of the little snobs from the Cirque? Well, that will make me killing you so much more enjoyable." he cackled. Cassie let out a small cry and the vampaneze pushed her into the trunk of an oak, his long _filthy_ hands wrapped around her neck. He ran his finger down her cheek, leaving a long, crimson scratch. He lifted his finger to his mouth, tasting the coppery liquid off of his finger.  
"Delicious." he moaned.

"Who the hell are you?" Cassie hissed, she looked out of the corner of her eye, trying to see where Evra was. She wanted him to just run away, she couldn't stand to see anything happen to Evra. He was the love of her life, she had already lost her parents, and had never found someone who sparked a fire in her soul like Evra did. She could find a way to get away from this lunatic, but she would have Evra walk away alive, even if she didn't.

"Oh, how rude of me. I'm Glalda, so tragic that you won't be around for us to get to know each other better."

I stirred in my coffin, I hated when my mind would play tricks on me. Before I woke up, I would sometimes think I was at home, in my bed. Safe in my room, still a normal girl, waiting and dreading the moment for my mom to come in, and wake me up for school. Hoping anything would happen so that my mom wouldn't come and take me from my warm bed. How foolish had I been, taking the smallest things for granted. I sat up in the coffin, turning my head from side to side, each time my neck responding in a pop. I blinked a couple of times, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hands and letting out a yawn before stepping out. I knew enough of Vampire Mountain to get to the hall of Osca Velm, where Darren and Mr. Crepsley would be. I walked slowly, ignoring the gazes of the other vampires, astonished at the fact of a child walking the halls. Just as usual, my heart skipped a beat when I saw Darren sitting down with Gavner and Crepsley, despite all the odds, smiling and joking with their mentor. I walked behind him quietly, a smirk on my face as I draped my arms around his neck.

"What the-" he started, but then stopped when he saw it that it was me who was affectionatley wrapping my arms around him. I'd be pretty pissed if he accepted it, that would mean he was just fine and dandy with other gir- my thoughts stopped when I realized there weren't more than three girls in the mountain and he was probably put off guard, hoping that it wasn't another guy behind him. He looked up and smiled pulling me down giving me a long, hard kiss, my face between his hands.

"Some of us are trying to eat!" Gavner chimed in. I pursed her lips and sat down next to Darren, his hand resting on my thigh.

"Give me a break Gavner." Iwinked, taking a piece of bread from the basket and ripping a piece off with my teeth. Another female walking into the hall caught my attention, but I smiled when I realized it as Kayden. She peered into the hall, walking tall and confidently, looking around, her long hair swinging from side to side as she did so. Her eyes narrowed and she smirked as she spotted Ronnie, coming over and leaning on the table.

"Kayden, long time no see." Gavner chortled, giving her a warm smile.

"Nice to see you Gavner," she smiled back, "Larten, good to see you also." she greeted. Mr. Crepsley looked up from his jug of blood,

"Always a pleasure." he said quickly, eager to return to his drink.  
"And you are?" she said, turning her attention to Darren, who stood up to shake her hand.  
"Darren Shan" he introduced himself before Kayden grabbed me by my wrist, lifting me from my seat.

"Well, I hate to ruin this moment, but I've got to get Ronnie here out of those rags, and on a tour of this lovely place we call home." she said half-sarcastically.  
"But Seba is going to be taking us all around the mountain in a few moments." Mr. Crepsley interjected.

"Well, I'm going to protect her sanity, I'll return her to you soon." Kayden said without a second look. I just shrugged my shoulders as I was pulled away, laughing to myself at the expression on her mentor's face.

"Great, we're here for a day, and she's already being taken away. What's next, is some bigger, better vampire going to take her away?" Darren grunted, watching as Ronnie left the hall.

"Probably." Gavner joked.

Kayden brought me to a room full of clothes, shoes and other pieces of apparel, it was like a huge deparment store, and I felt a small kick of joy in my stomach.  
"Thank god, I've been dying to get some real clothes on." I cheered, looking through the various piles of clothing.

"You definitely need it." Kayden chuckled, leaning up against the wall, crossing her ankles and examining her nail beds as I picked out her outfit. I squealed in girlish delight when I found a pair of knee high black boots, eagerly putting them on my feet and then grabbed a long black dress from another pile.

"Oh no, this wont do." I frowned, lifting at the fabric as it dragged on the floor.

"Let me help you," Kayden offered, pulling out a dagger and trimming the fabric to right above my knee.  
"Don't cut me! Be careful!" I pleaded, watching as she tore through with impressive speed.

"Say another word and I might, and it wont be on accident." she mumbled, still focused on making her cuts precise. I held the sleeves in my hand, staring at them deciding what to do. It clicked in my head as I took the long sleeves on the dress and tied them around my neck, turning it from a long sleeve, to a halter. Cassie would be proud. I finally finished her outfit off with a blue cloak, if I was going to be living in Vampire Mountain, the least I could do was try and dress like a proper vampire... in some ways. I smiled, giving myself a nod of approval and looked at Kayden who gave her a thumbs up,  
"Thank god, someone who actually dresses descent. Arra hasn't gotten herself dressed up in years, but she will once she knows Larten's here." Kayden snickered.

"Who's Arra, and why?" I prodded, doing a little jog to catch up to Kayden who was walking very quickly through the many passages of the mountain.

"You'll see, you'll see." she said, waving off her questions, "So, who is that boy that was sitting with you?" she questioned. I could tell that she was interested in the little things. I would be pretty bored if I was one of the only females in the mountain who had a sense of style and didn't have anyone to talk girl with.

"Oh, Darren? That's my..." I started, now that I thought about it, I had never said out loud what Darren was to me. The only people who would ask were Mr. Crepsley and Gavner, and they already knew their status with each other along with Evra and Cassie, everyone just assumed, but never asked. "Boyfriend." I finished, trying to keep a grin from spreading across my face as I said so.

"Just adora-oof!" Kayden wheezed as she came in contact with another vampire. The bald vampire looked enraged at the fact that someone had ran into him, but his eyes immediately softened when he saw who the perpetrator was.

"Kayden, my apologies." he said as he scrambled to his feet, and then offering his hand to help her up.

"It's fine, Sire." she said, nodding her head. Sire? Was he one of the princes. I ducked out of eye-sight, I didn't want to be seen and have him question me without Mr. Crepsley around, the last thing I wanted to do was say something wrong and get the backlash for it later.

"Kayden, for the last time, you don't have to call me Sire. Just Arrow is fine." he said softly, his features growing softer than before.

"Ah- uh, alright, Arrow." She said, her tongue tying as she tried to get the words out of her mouth.

"Sire, sire! We need you back in the Hall of Princes!" Another vampire came screeching up, Arrow's posture quickly stiffened, and his eyes returned to a dull, emotionless green, his lips pressed into a thin line. He nodded his head and looked to Kayden,  
"Good-day." he said giving her one faint smile before walking away. Kayden sighed and face-palmed herself when he walked away.

"Who was that?" I sang, raising my eyebrows up and down. She jumped, forgetting that I was there, watching the whole situation at hand.

"No one, nothing, just let's go!" She said, trying to get away from the conversation of the events that just unfolded.

"Was he one of the princes?" I asked, trying to make it a little less awkward.

"Yes, you'll be meeting all of them soon, when you present yourself." She said, not looking over at her. I just shrugged, and tried to keep up with Kayden's long strides.

"From the way you- he- you both looked at eachother, I think Kaydees got a little secret admirer. Well, it's not a secret to someone who has the gift of seeing the obvious." I teased, smiling as I watched Kayden's face turn pink.

"No, it's nothing, really. He's a prince, and I'm a general, well almost. It's strictly business between us." she defended, trying to cover up her embarrassment with a rough tone, "cut it out, Ronnie!"

I lifted my hands in defense,

"Okay, okay. I was just saying-"

"-dont." Kayden said before I had a chance to finish, "Let's just keep moving, kay?" she said, giving me a reassuring smile that showed me that she wasn't really upset. The last thing I wanted to do was get my new friend mad at me. I would always end up saying something to get someone mad at me. but thank god Kayden wasn't the same way. She didn't seem touchy and over-hormonal like the other bitc—girls I knew. But, I could definitely see my match-making skills to be needed in the future. God, I just love doing this.

**A/N: In my opinion, this chapter sucked for some reason, when I was writing Ronnie I was totally out of it, and kept writing in third person... weird. But I fixed it and got back into it. So many perspectives getting me confused. Even though it was crap, REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Even you non-registered people, you can do it! No excuses! **


	23. Sinister

**A/N: Hello! Sorry that it's been taking me so long to update, I feel terrible. But I've been so busy lately! But I promised to update at LEAST once a week, maybe more, when I have the time! ALMOST AT 100 REVIEWS! Wow! Lets see... if you get me to 90 reviews by Sunday, I'll put up the next chapter!**

Thank you to my _beautiful_ reviewers!

RoxyPony: I'm glad you liked it! It's only going to get better! They definitely are bonding, and will have an amazing friendship, just like us!

Moonlight-97: Sorry I made you wait! Here you go!

Amela333: Yeah she is! Always having to interfere.

Slytherin Queen 1.30: You'll see! I'll definitely have her come back soon!

Sapphiet: You do? It's pretty subtle! Darren is in this chapter, or next!

Alwaysreading25: Is this asap enough?

Ferretgirlsz: Yay! Welcome to the wait for updates train! He really is!

**Disclaimer-**

**Ronnie: Caitlyn doesn't own anything. At all.**

**Me: I own you! And this story! And the super amazing MissXMagic**

**Cassie: OWNS ME! **

**Me: Yes, and-**

**Kade: -RoxyPony is mine! **

**Me: Alright, Darren Shan owns everything else, except for the guest character in this chapter, is owned by .xX**

**Anastasia: ugh.**

_**Listening to: "Permanent December" and "Speak Now" by Taylor Swift**_

I followed Kayden throughout the tunnels, the dim lighting would make it hard for a normal person to see, but thankfully my eyes easily adjusted to the dark. We entered a large room, filled with many rings with sparring vampires, and a tall set of bars.

"And this place is my favorite," Kayden gleamed, with a grin on her face, "The gaming hall, this is where you can challenge other vampires to a sword fight, or on those bars... is that your boyfriend?" she said, taking a double glance and pointing over to the bars. I sighed, resting the palm of my hand on my face. There was Darren, his face scrunched in determination, facing another female on the bars. She was pretty built, and muscular. Her face was delicate, and her long black hair was tied into a tight braid. What was he doing? Honestly, he was so stupid sometimes.

"And from what I can see, he's going against Arra." Kayden started, and then finished with a snort, "He's fucked!" I gave her a sharp look and ran over to where the rest of the vampires were watching excited at the action and eager to see the outcome. I stood next to another vampire, he looked worried, fidgeting where he was standing, shouting tips out to Darren when he was in earshot. Kayden walked over next to him, placing her hands on the arch of her back, rocking back and forth on her heels.

"Kurda, please tell me you told him who he was going up against." she dictated.

"I tried to tell him! But he insisted that he could take her," he verified, not taking his eyes off the fight, except with a quick shift of his eyes. "And he already fell off once before, pretty hard too. But once again, he demanded a rematch." He eased up, and turned, seeing that I was a new resident of the mountain.  
"And who are you?" he keened, I couldn't keep my eyes away from the bars. I was extremely nervous, and thinking about how Darren was going to get it for being so stupid. Before I could answer, he fell to the ground again, this time not moving. The woman, who I took to be as Arra was gleaming triumphantly, hopping down from the bars with vampiric ease. I didn't give her any attention, knocking people out of my way to kneel at Darren's side. I let out a sigh of relief when his eyes fluttered open, he let out an agonizing grunt,

"My head is spinning... Ronnie?" he faltered.

"Yeah, it's me. What were you THINKING! Darren, we've been here for a day, tops and then you pull something like this. Are you mental?" I scolded, trying to keep my voice hushed. Kayden seemed to stroll her way over,

"You alright?" She asked leaning down to take a better look at him. He just ignored her, and struggled to his feet.

"Darren, seriously. Sit down, you're probably really hurt." I stressed, but he put my requests to the side and held his hand out to Arra.

"Shake." He demanded. She looked at his extended palm with disgust, as if it was holding the plauge.

"He deserves it." Kurda interjected.

"I don't get it, why does he want to shake her hand? She just kicked his ass basically." I fumed, I was pissed. Not only because Darren was being stupid for going up on the bars, not once but TWICE, he totally ignored me.

"Arra has some weird thing where she doesn't shake anyones hand unless she respects them." Kayden uttered. I looked over at her with a 'seriously? Is that a joke?' kind of look, and a laughed escaped her lips.

"I didn't say it wasn't weird. That's just what she does." She shrugged. Arra's expression morphed from disgust, and disbelief to a impressed smirk. She grabbed Darren's hand and shook, and right after Darren turned to me.  
"Alright then," he jabbered, before passing out.

Evra came from behind bearing a large rock in his hands, knocking the vampaneze over the head with it. Cassie gasped for air and gripped her throat with her hand as Glalda's grip was removed. Glalda snarled, turning around his eyes glowing with rage and fury. Cassie's head pounded, each time her heart beat she could feel the blood and the pulsing surging through her whole body. Not only was her life in danger, but she would die on the spot if Evra was torn to pieces.

"Glalda, give them a break. You're so greedy, haven't you had enough?"

The three of them stopped, Evra gulped, looking at Cassie, his golden eyes were filled with panic. Cassie's head snapped around trying to find the source of the voice, she looked in the general direction Glalda was glaring in. There was a girl balancing perfect on a branch of one of the tallest tree's, leaning up against the trunk her ankles crossed, along with her arms. She was looking at her hand, examining her nails. Her dark hair was pulled back into a high pony-tail, the tips of her hair seeming to be dipped in an electric blue. If Cassie wasn't so stressed, and in full on panic mode, she would say she could definitely pull off the two toned hair-color.

"Anastasia," Glalda growled, "Why do you always have to ruin my fun?" she rolled her eyes and jumped down from the tree with impressive speed. She obviously was a vampaneze too.

"Quit your crying." she snapped back, before walking over to Evra and Cassie. "Sometimes you're just so stupid. Someone needs to be the brains of this operation." she finished, her gaze lying on Cassie. "Besides, we at least need one survivor, to scurry on back to the camp," she taunted, making a running motion with her two fingers, "and warn the others on what to come."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cassie cursed, there was no way she was going to let anyone mess with the Cirque. Anastasia threw her head back in a insincere laugh, she grabbed Cassie's face between her hands.

"Some shit's about to go down, pretty princess. And it wouldn't be any fun if we did it by surprise." she said, her lips curling into a sinister smile.

"Fine." Cassie said, "We'll go back and tell them, just let us go."

"Whoa hold on there, I said we needed _a_ survivor. We still need to decide which one of you lives."


	24. Hit List

**A/N: So, I promised that if I got 90 reviews, that I would update by Sunday! Well, it's Sunday, and here I am! So, since we're just oh so close to 100 reviews, if I get 100 reviews, the update will come two days earlier than planned! **

A thank you to all of my _beautiful_ reviewers!

MISSxMAGIC: Glad you liked it!

RoxyPony: Yes, yes she is! Yeah, Kurdy... good old guy!

TamaraD: You lazy girl, but I'm so glad I got her right!

Ferretgirlsz: Great to see your reviews now that you're caught up!

Amela333: Yeah, he's used to it though! Cliff hangers... they're what I do!

Sapphiet: Mhmm! Poor guy!

Disclaimer: I only own Ronnie, and this story! The girl's of OFL belong to the one and only extraordinary MissXMagic owns Cassie. The unpredictable RoxyPony owns Kayden. The guest character in this chapter, Amius is owned by Ellie Ranesburg66 and Anastasia is owned by TamaraD, or Completely Incomplete.

_Listening to: "I just wanna run"- The Downtown Fiction_

I sat in Darren's room, waiting for him to wake up. He was exhausted after his spar with Arra, and passed out right after getting a hand-shake from her... which I still didn't understand. I sat there, fuming when he stirred in his hammock, letting out a loud huff of air. I looked over, it was about time. I was sitting there fuming for the past half an hour.

"Ronnie" he slurred, holding his hand out towards her.

"Hey." I frowned, his eye-brows raised at my tone, and then returned to their normal state after remembering why he was asleep, and why he ached all over.

"What's wrong?" he asked, gritting his teeth while he sat up.

"Nothing." I lied.

"Ronnie, seriously. You think that I of all people wouldn't know when you're mad, or lying?" he pointed out.

"Alright, you want to know what's wrong, I cannot even FATHOM, how stupid you are sometimes, Darren." I interjected, his eyes widened and he stammered for words.

"What do you mean?" He countered, "I didn't do anything wrong, Ronnie!"

"We were here for a day, not even, and you go trying to fight full vampires. You could have gotten yourself killed!" I huffed, "And then you totally ignore me when I ask you just to sit down, because I don't want you to get killed!"

"Do you know how crazy you're sounding right now?" Oh, that's it.

"Crazy!" I exasperated, "Alright, then I'm not going to care what you do, go and kill yourself. How about this, I won't worry about you, and you don't worry about me."

"I didn't mean it that way- Ronnie I meant, it's just that I-" he stammered, shooting up onto his feet.

"Just, leave me alone, Darren." I retorted. The tension in the room was so thick, that you could cut it with a knife when our mentor walked in.  
"What's wrong?" he joined in, seeing the expression on my face. When I was feeling a certain way, you definitely knew it, I wasn't complicated, at all.

"Nothing." I spat, keeping my arms crossed.

"Well, act like there's nothing wrong. The princes want to see us." Mr. Crepsley confirmed, gesturing for us to go. I stood up, smoothing out my dress and walked out of the room, I didn't know where I was going, but I would wait for them to catch up when I got stuck. We walked through the corridors to the Hall of Princes. It was guarded by at least three or four vampires, who asked our names and confirmed them before letting us in. When we walked in, my eyes scanned the vampires sitting in the thrones. Many vampires were watching as we walked in, along with Kayden who seemed more uptight, she was a general after all, she couldn't be her normal self, it'd be like going out to a party with your boss. Just weird. I shivered from the glance of one of the Princes, his eyes were onyx, and he was all together dark. You know when someone's looking at you, and the second you make eye contact, they look away? Well, he didn't do that. He continued his gaze, staring, awkwardly, I looked down at my feet.

"Larten, do you understand what you've done?" One of the princes began, I recognized him as Arrow from his run-in with Kayden.

"You've blooded not one, but TWO childen!" The dark one admonished, his voice shaking the hall.

"Calm down, Mika." Arrow warned, giving him an inward glance.

"Yes, I'm aware. And I'm accepting any punishment you find suitable, sires." Mr. Crepsley respected.

"They're going to have to face the trials of initiation." The oldest one insisted, Mr. Crepsley tightened up.

"Pardon me, sires, but they're only half. They cannot perform the trials without perishing." he cautioned.

"Simple, we'll just take out the trials they are unable to perform, and then they can choose from the remaining ones. But, we can't have them both do them at the same time, so we'll have the boy go first, and then the girl." Arrow responded.

"And what are your names?" Paris appealed.

"Darren."

"Ronnie."

"Well, the festival of the undead is soon also, so Darren you'll have a break in between your trials, because we cannot have them happening during the ceremony." Arrow said, nodding his head.

"But if you do fail, you will be sent to death." Mika interjected.

Cassie was shaking, her legs felt like twigs, trying to hold her up. Her body weight felt like tumbling down and letting her collapse into a ball on the floor. Fire burned behind Anastasia's eyes, a dark, unforgiving fire.  
"I say the girl, we can't eat the reptile anyways!" Glalda requested. Anastasia gave him a glare,

"I'll say this again, you don't have a choice! We don't have to eat them, you glutton."

"Let them go Anastasia." A voice countered from out of the bushes.

"And who the hell are you?" Anastasia cursed, turning her back on Cassie and Evra.

"Amius, I'm from the mountain. I have an army of generals on my trail, we're on the way up there, so I advise if you don't want to be killed, that you let them go." He sounded very official. Cassie let out a breath of relief, she didn't know who she expected to save them, but she's so glad that god sent them someone. Thank you big guy, I'm going to start praying more often she thought. Anastasia rolled her eyes, before spitting back a venomous reply.

"Fine, we'll leave them." she said signaling Glalda and flitting away.

"Thank you." Cassie huffed, her heart still racing, she walked over to Evra, his arms swooping around her and drawing her close to his chest. She could hear his heart thumping against his rib cage as loud and quick as her own. He kissed her head, and her forehead before drawing her lips to his, his kiss was hard as he pressed his lips against hers. Cassie smiled in the kiss, she never was going to take the smallest of his kisses for granted, ever.

"You're welcome." Amius grinned, bowing his head. Cassie and Evra had almost forgotten about the girl laying in the grass, passed out. Cassie jogged over, leaning down to check her pulse, she was alive. Cassie let out a sigh of relief as the girl's eyes fluttered open.  
"What's her name?" Evra asked, peeking over.  
"I don't know, we were kind of distracted." Cassie reminded him.

"Rebecca." The girl breathed before falling back into her sleep.

"You cannot stay here." Amius chimed in.  
"Why not?" Cassie said, getting defensive.  
"Anastasia is a vampaneze, and I've taken you from her. She won't rest until she kills you, it's not like her to leave something unfinished." He informed her.  
"Well, where are we supposed to go?" Evra stuttered, he was always with the Cirque, he couldn't imagine life away from it.

"For now, you're going to have to come with me to Vampire Mountain, you'll be safe there, until we can speak with the vampaneze and get you off Anastasia's hit list."


	25. Over the edge

**A/N: So I was planning to update tomorrow, but you can all thank _MissXMagic _for encouraging me to update sooner! I'm almost at 100 reviews! So close! I'm really excited! Also, I'm going to start editing each chapter, and remove mistakes, and maybe add a little in some parts. At 100 reviews, I might post the next update in a totally different part, to start fresh! Like think of this as the ending of book one, and onto book two. "One Freakish Love:_". What do you think? If you like it, fill in the blank. If I like it, I may use it! But, enjoy your update!**

A thank you to all of my _beautiful_ reviewers. Each one makes me SO happy, so keep em' coming!

MissXMagic: I know! I wish I could do that sometimes too!

Completely Incomplete: YES! The wonderful guy, I know, I can't help it! But here's one for your inbox!

Ellie Ranesburg66: It's fine! I'm glad you liked it! I know how it is, but you should definitely update soon ;) I hope I did okay portraying him! There will be more in this chapter! I actually don't but I'll read it, and review anyways! I love giving lengthy reviews, don't get me wrong those are ok, but longer ones are better!

Sapphiet: Thank you!

RoxyPony: Yes! I will definitely put lines in this chapter, I always forget to do that... but thank you for the awesome review sista! I'll be on MSN after I update. Larty, you gotta pick up what I'm throwin down, brahhh!

Amela333: Yes, they are!

Ferretgirlsz: Will do!

**Disclaimer: I only own Ronnie, and that's all. The amazing other characters known as Cassie, Kade and Amius belong to MissXMagic, RoxyPony and EllieRanesburg66**

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose between my two fingers. I had looked into the eyes of death many times, but knowing my clumsy self, I was afraid. I made stupid, obvious mistakes, all the time. And if these trials were something you couldn't mess up a little bit, well, I'd be royally screwed.

"But do not worry," Arrow began "Ronnie, Kaydee-" he started and then paused, realizing what had come out of his mouth, his face began to turn a light pink and Mika, who was still gazing at me with the same blank stare let out a snort. I looked over at Kayden, who was sending him a glare. Apparently, I was the only one who was able to call her by the godforsaken nickname.

"Kayden," he corrected quickly "Will be helping you with training. And Vanez with yours, Darren." We both gave a weak nod in response.

"You will have a month before you start training, due to the fact we need supplies. But that still is a very small time to train, so it will be harder than it normally would be, even for a full vampire. And then start your trials then, luckily in between you will have a break because of the Festival of the Undead." Paris answered, that man really interested me. It seemed as though the lines on his face were filled with stories, that I was dying to learn about.

"Your done here." Mika barked, waving us away with his hand. Kayden reached me at the exit, tapping her foot impatiently. She grabbed me by my wrist, something she did regularly, dragging me out of the flow of people out of the hall.

"Alright, you're not going to die on my watch. You're passing those trials." She said, her eyes narrowing into slits with determination. I nodded my head, as Darren came up to us.

"Hey." He hesitated, putting his hands into his pockets. I just looked to the side, still angry at him and gave him a nod letting him know that I was listening.

"Uhm," he faltered, biting at his lip, "Can I just talk to you, later?"

"I guess," I scoffed, "Meet you in my room in fifteen minutes." He nodded his head and turned on his heels to walk away. I swiveled my head back over to look at Kayden, whose eyes were wide and sparking with curiousty.

"Oh, you're a bitch," she thundered, "I like it... a lot."

I shrugged, my eyes angling down at my shoulder,

"If I have a reason to, he was being borderline retarded!" I mewled.

"Fill me in!" she upbraided. I was really happy to have a friend like Kayden, she listened, hanging onto every word as I ranted about my fall out with Darren. The only time she interrupted me was to comment about how I used my hands to talk, excessively. We were extremely alike, from the way we talked, to our attitudes, kind of like we were sisters. It was good to have someone I could connect with so well, especially not having Cassie here. It was easy to feel alone, being the only girl amongst hundreds of testosterone filled males.

"Damn!" she noted, "You definitely were right, but if he apologizes, you definitely need to forgive him. You guys are way to valuable of an item! Now go to your room, and lay down the law! But, go easy on him!" she dictated, turning my around by my shoulder and giving me a rough shove towards my room. I walked slowly, looking down at my feet as I did so, thoughts running through my head. I let out a rough grunt and I was stopped by a large body, none other than the vampire with the stone cold gaze.

Mika.

* * *

Cassie shuffled through her belongings, Amius stood in her doorway shooting down any of the reasonable outfits that Cassie would hold up.  
"No, you cannot wear that, you'll freeze." he marked for what seemed to be the hundredth time. No matter what Cassie chose, it was unacceptable. Well, sometimes you have to sacrifice a little to look good. But according to Amius, that wasn't the case. Cassie had to throw a fit to be able to wear the light teal vans that she had borrowed from Ronnie, and well, '_forgot' _to return to her.

"Those will stand out in the snow like a sore thumb, if we're being watched, that's a dead giveaway." he condemned, trying to be as nice as possible. It was bad enough that she was even wearing shoes, but for being a human, it was necessary, if they walked without shoes, their feet would be so damaged to the point they would have to be amputated. It was mainly summer time, but there were still some cold patches, so instead of boots the wretched brightly colored sneakers would have to do.

Cassie finally got on her outfit, and nodded at herself in approval in the mirror. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone at the Cirque, but thankfully she had Evra with her. She held his hand squeezing tightly, every time they said goodbye to someone. It was terrible to see Evra, he was trying hard to keep strong for Cassie, but there was difficulty when you're saying goodbye to the people you've known your whole life, for a long time.

"Goodbye, Cassandra." Mr. Tall said, taking Cassie's hand and kissing it lightly.

"Thank you for everything Mr. Tall." She leered respectfully with a bow of her head.

"You're about to start a very hard journey," he drawled, "you need to stay strong, for yourself, for Evra and Veronica, there's a rough path for her ahead... and you may be the one thing that can keep her from-"

"We need to leave, _now!"_ Amius trumpeted, busting into the tent. "Anastasia is coming, and she's not alone, we need to get out of here, or else we'll have no chance for your survival."

"But wait! Mr. Tall! Keep her from what!" Cassie bellowed, trying to take a grasp on anything that he had just said, all while Amius pulling them out of the tent. Mr. Tall only stood there, his fingers intertwined and his thin lips pressed into a line. Thoughts raced through Cassie's head, but there was no time to dwell on that now, as they made their way out of the camp she smiled to herself, _Evra had never let go. _His hand was still firmly gripping hers, and now they were on their way to Vampire Mountain, even though they weren't vampires, it had to be done. They would be the only two there that weren't apart of the vampire clan, just the snake-boy and the different girl.

**A/N: Heheh, sorry for the cliff-hangers! I couldn't help it! And I hope you like the clever reference at the end, lets see if you catch it ;) Now, **REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW** **


	26. The Last For Now Until We Begin Again

**A/N: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I know, it's taken me so long to update! I'm so sorry, I promise that you'll never have to wait this long again. I went out of town, and didn't have any time to write! But yes, I'm going to start book two, so this is the last update, under this title! How sad, breaks my heart a little bit. But, here's an awesome little titbit of information! So, we all know how Mineby Taylor Swift, is basically the theme for this whole story. Well, I found another song, that will join that and be the theme for the next installment. It makes me so happy, because it's so perfect for Ronnie and Darren! The song is, Light Up The Sky by Yellowcard. Now, enough with the Author's note, let's get on with the chapter. Which is basically a re-cappy type thing, that shows a deeper look into Ronnie and Darren, so there isn't any Cassie and Evra, but don't worry there's going to be LOADS of them!**

A special thank you to my _beautiful_ reviewers!

Joan: Thank you!

RoxyPony...Roxy: You silly girl! Thank you for the reviews, amazing as always! You're such a factor that drives me to write all the time, even when I'm too lazy to update!

Amela333: Thank you! I think 100 may be my new favorite number! Exactly, and I have the blank filled now! I love long reviews, so I don't mind at all! ;)

Ferretgirlsz: Good job! Thanks!

Moonlight-97: Thank you, I thought it was pretty clever!

Alwaysreading25: Omg, I love that you love it! :)

Completely Incomplete: Yes! I'm so excited! Thank you so much!

Sapphiet: Ah, I know, but you gotta love him!

**Disclaimer: I only own Ronnie, you should know everything else by now!**

_Listening to "Mine" by Taylor Swift (AWWWW! THE BEGINNING) and "Light Up The Sky" by Yellowcard._

I looked up at the dark prince, his eyes were cold and I didn't know what to say. I moved to the side, expecting him to walk by, but instead he stood there with the same deep, ominous look in his eyes. Seeing that he was just going to stare at me, I decided to break the silence.

"Sorry," I apologized "I really need to start watching where I'm going." I chuckled, desperate to try and break the ice, but of course, it didn't work. The smile faded from my face, and I dropped my hands down to hang at my sides, starting to step backwards and make my way over to Darren's room.

"I'm just going to go now then, Sire." I trailed off, making sure to add the needed respect at the end.

"I'm sorry, for being so harsh." He grumbled. My eyes widened, I didn't know much about him but I could see that he normally wasn't the type of person to apologize. "I do not want you to fail, so you're going to need to work hard." Then he turned and bounded to leave, striding down the narrow passages. The gears started to turn in my head, and I sat down for a second. Apologies are so much more important and mean so much more that I had thought. I was being such a little brat, treating Darren the way I did, after everything we've been through I realized I was just afraid at the fact of losing him.

_Ronnie slept soundly, this was the first night that she slept not being the normal girl that she had lived her life as. Darren ran his hands over hers, which were now scarred at the tips. His heart sank, he had taken the humanity from her, and felt so selfish he- Ronnie quickly shot up, letting out a scream. She grabbed onto his shirt, his body stable with her shaking body, her voice silenced with sobs. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close as possible to him, running his hands through her hair. "You're okay, what's wrong?" he hushed her, she looked up, her blue eyes glowing out against the reddened whites of her eyes. "They we're after me, and my mom, and she's gone." she struggled to keep the tears from coming out as she gritted her teeth together, "I'll never see her again, but I can't let them get her, Darren. I can't let them." she cried into my chest. "Who?" breathed, "The people who are screaming at me, telling me that I'm evil." "You're not evil, and I'll never let them get you." I smiled to myself as I felt her smirk into my t-shirt._

_You're making choice to live like this, and all of the noise, I am silence. We already know how it ends tonight, you run in the dark through a firefight. And I would explode just to save your life, yeah I would explode._

_Let me light up the sky, light it up for you. Let me tell you why, I would die for you. Let me light up the sky._

"_I can't do it! You're just doing this for your own sick entertainment!" Ronnie snapped at Mr. Crepsley, as she and Darren tried to balance the slippery stones of the river. "Yes you can! You need to tap into your senses!" Mr. Crepsley growled back, frustrated at the fact of them not being able to hone their balance. Darren slipped once again, falling into the creek, "I quit! That is enough for today!" Mr. Crepsley grunted, turning to leave and head back for the camp. Darren surfaced from the water, his eyes searching to the rock where Ronnie first stood. He jumped a little when she rose from the water in front of him, blonde hair soaking wet and reflecting the night of the sky, sticking flat to her face. The color from her lips was faded, and tinted a deep blue from the unforgiving cold of the water. "I don't even think he could do it." Ronnie mumbled, kissing Darren the salt from the lake present on their lips. Darren turned to swim away, getting out of the water, not saying a word. Ronnie followed, her eyebrows pushed together into a straight line. "Whats wrong?" she beckoned, Darren flicked his hands trying to get rid of the excess water. "I'm frusterated!" He roared, Ronnie jumped, shocked at his animalistic answer. "I'm sorry," he hushed, seeing her start to step away, "I'm angry at the fact that I can't do anything Mr. Crepsley wants me to do. My world has fallen apart, right now, we'd just be at home, probably doing homework, getting ready for school the next day. But everything has just gotten..." "Fucked." Ronnie finished for him, her signature smirk present on her face. "I just don't think that we- I can do it." Darren exasperated. "Let's try again." Ronnie finished._

_I can't find a wall to pin this to, they're all coming down since I've found you. I just wanna be where you are tonight. I run in the dark looking for some light, and how will we know if we just don't try, we won't ever know._

_Let me light up the sky, light it up for you. Let me tell you why, I would die for you._

_Let me light up the sky, light it up for you. Let me make this mine, I'll ignite for you._

"_Ronnie! You are not weak, come at me!" Mr Crepsley yelled, as Ronnie struck at him with all of her ferocity. Making high kicks, and sharp quick, blows at the man, getting more and more frustrated each time he would easily block her blows. Finally he crossed his arms as she stood there, fists clenched, chest heaving up and down searching for some breath to catch up with. "You are hopeless, you will never be able to-" he was quickly silenced and before he knew it, he was on the ground, flat on his back. Ronnie grinned, placing the tip of her boot on his chest. As he was talking, he closed his eyes to make another remark she quickly took her leg and swiped his out from underneath him. "Weak." Ronnie breathed as Mr. Crepsley's lips spread into a wide grin. before grabbing her coat and walk to the city. Darren and Ronnie had been in New York for at least a month, Darren struggled to catch up as she quickly ran though the city from building to building until she finally stopped, standing on the ledge, hands in her pockets. "Ronnie, god, what's the rush!" Darren gasped, as she turned lines of tears had made paths in her makeup. "I am weak." Ronnie started as Darren walked closer. "You're one of the strongest people I know you're not weak." Darren counteracted, taking her hand in his. "No, I'm not. I just don't know how else to be, other than trying to be so strong all the time. I care whenever Mr. Crepsley says that I'm a waste of blood. I care whenever there's something that I can't do, that you can do so well! I care when I'm walking down the street, and people look down on me, or make comments, even if they may not be true! I care, a little too much. But I'd rather die than let anyone know. I don't understand why-" Darren cut her off, pressing his lips to hers, gripping her firmly to him. "There could be a million things wrong with you, but I don't care." He cooed. "But you do talk too much."_

_Let me light up the sky, just for you tonight. Let me help you fly, cause you won't have time. To cover your eyes, get your disguise, they won't ask you why, they just watch you die. And it's still so hard to be who you are, so you play this part, and the show goes on._

_But you've come this far with a broken heart, yeah you've come this far, and you're broken._

_Let me light up the sky, light it up for you. Let me tell you why, I would die for you. And it's still so hard to be who you are, but you've come this far with a broken heart. And it's still so hard to be who you are, but you've come this far and you're broken..._

_I love you, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you, Ronnie. _

_Let me light up the sky, Let me light up the sky._

I stood up from where I was sitting, breaking into a full on run. I smiled as I ran, my heart beating with each time that my foot stomped against the ground. I busted through Darren's door, my heart still racing from my sudden sprint, and looked from side to side frantically trying to see where he was standing. I let out a- somewhat crazy- "Aha!" as I saw him and jumped into his arms, he let out a grunt as I made contact and he fell backwards onto his hammock, which swung around and threw us down again on the ground. I kissed him over and over again,

"I'm sorry." I repeated in between kisses, "I'm just protective, because I'm worried that something would happen to you- and I would die without you, I don't know what I would do, and I was just acting like a total brat, and did I say I'm sorry? I don't want you to-" his lips crashed into mine and this time when we pulled back, he was breathing heavily as well. We sat there for a second staring at each other, before he pulled my forehead to his.

"You talk too much."

And I would never want my life any other way, if I could go back and change it all, I wouldn't want anything other than our one freakish love.

**A/N: I loved writing this, I'll post the next PART up soon! And then we're going to start up right where we left off here! See ya there! **

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